Program Notes: Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with Anne Akiko Meyers
CLASSICS 2024/25
MENDELSSOHN VIOLIN CONCERTO FEATURING ANNE AKIKO MEYERS
PERFORMED BY YOUR COLORADO SYMPHONY
DOUGLAS BOYD, conductor
ANNE AKIKO MEYERS, violin
Friday, October 4, 2024 at 7:30pm
Saturday, October 5, 2024 at 7:30pm
Sunday, October 6, 2024 at 1:00pm
Boettcher Concert Hall
TCHAIKOVSKY Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy
MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64
I. Allegro molto appassionato
II. Andante
III. Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace
— INTERMISSION —
SIBELIUS Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52
I. Allegro moderato
II. Andantino con moto; quasi allegretto
III. Moderato – Allegro; ma non tanto
CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 34 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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DOUGLAS BOYD, conductor
Currently the Artistic Director of Garsington Opera Douglas Boyd has also held the positions of Music Director of L’Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Chief Conductor of the Musikkollegium Winterthur, Music Director of Manchester Camerata, Principal Guest Conductor of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Partner of St Paul Chamber Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of City of London Sinfonia. In 2020 he received the highly prestigious Grand Vermeil Médaille de la Ville de Paris for services to music, in recognition of his work as Music Director of L’Orchestre de Chambre de Paris.
Originally an oboist and one of the founding members of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Douglas’s formative musical training was under musicians such as Abbado and Harnoncourt, who remain a significant influence on his style and approach to this day.
In the UK Douglas Boyd has conducted all the BBC Orchestras, the Philharmonia, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, London Mozart Players, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Royal Northern Sinfonia. On the continent he has worked with, amongst others, the Bergen Philharmonic, Basel Sinfonieorchester, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, as well as Munich Chamber Orchestra and Kammerakademie Potsdam.
Further afield he has conducted the Nagoya Symphony Orchestra in Japan, Hong Kong Philharmonic and with many of the symphony orchestras in Australia including a complete cycle of Beethoven Symphonies with the Melbourne Symphony as well as the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos with Paul Lewis. In the 2022/23 season he conducted the complete Beethoven Symphonies with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and returns there in 23/24 as well as appearing with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.
Douglas appears regularly in North America where he has worked with the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore, Colorado, Dallas, Detroit, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Pacific, Sacramento, Seattle, Utah and Virginia Symphony Orchestras. In Canada he has appeared with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and National Arts Orchestra in Ottawa.
On the concert platform he enjoys a close working relationship with eminent soloists including Jonathan Biss, Steven Isserlis, Anthony Marwood, Viktoria Mulova, Fazil Say, András Schiff, Mark Padmore, Emmanuel Pahud and Alissa Weilerstein.
Operatic engagements have included Die Zauberflöte for Glyndebourne Opera on Tour, Salieri’s La Grotto di Tronfonio for Zürich Opera Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito with Opera North and with the Potsdam Winteroper conducting Britten’s Rape of Lucretia Productions at Garsington Opera have included Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan Tutte, Eugene Onegin, Capriccio, Silver Birch (Roxanna Panufnik, world premiere), Il barbiere di Siviglia as well as concert performances of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Haydn’s The Creation with Ballet Rambert and concert performances of Fidelio. In 2022 he conducted the world premiere of the new community opera, Dahlia, by Roxanna Panufnik and
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a new production of Rusalka at Garsington. The production of Rusalka also appeared as part of the 2022 Edinburgh International Festival. Future titles with Garsington include A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
During his tenure as Artistic Director of Garsington Opera he has secured the Philharmonia Orchestra and English Concert as the resident orchestras, forged partnerships with Santa Fe Opera and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and is widely recognised for his leadership in shaping the company into a world-class, internationally renowned festival, reflected in their nomination in the 2019 international opera awards.
Douglas Boyd’s recording of the Bach Concerti for DG marked his recording debut as director/ soloist and he has since gone on to build an extensive conducting discography. His recordings with Manchester Camerata of the complete Beethoven Symphonies and Mahler Symphony No 4 (on Avie) and Das Lied von der Erde have received universal critical acclaim. He has also recorded Schubert Symphonies with the St Paul Chamber Orchestra on their own label as well as several recordings with Musikkollegium Winterthur. His recordings with L’Orchestre de Chambre de Paris include ‘Intuition’ with Gautier Capuçon for the Erato label, and a disc of Haydn Symphonies which was released in 2021.
Recent and future highlights include concerts with the Aalborg Symfoniorkester, Auckland Philharmonia, Adelaide and Queensland Symphony Orchestras, BBC Symphony, Philharmonic and National Orchesta of Wales Orchestras, Colorado Symphony, Musikkollegium Winterthur, North Carolina Symphony, New World Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfonia do Porto, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, St Paul Chamber Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Gävle Symfoniorkester, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Utah Symphony, Sacramento Symphony and L’Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine.
ANNE AKIKO MEYERS, violin
Anne Akiko Meyers, is one of the world’s most esteemed violinists, a muse and champion of today’s most important composers, conductors, orchestras and presenters. She has commissioned, premiered, and recorded a remarkable collection of new violin repertoire which has been performed around the world with leading orchestras, in recital and become staples of classical music radio and streaming platforms.
Anne received a 2024 GRAMMY® Award nomination for her live recording with Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Philharmonic of Arturo Márquez’s Fandango, a concerto for violin and orchestra written for her in 2021, which she has performed dozens of times.
In the 2024-25 season, Anne will continue to champion Fandango with the Cincinnati Symphony, Grant Park Music Festival, Sarasota Symphony, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería in Mexico City and the Canadian premiere with the Vancouver Symphony. Other season highlights include the world premiere at Carnegie Hall of Murmur, composed for Anne by Eric Whitacre, with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. In October 2024, Anne will be inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame, which will be streamed on Roku, honoring leading members of the Asian community across a wide array of disciplines.
PHOTO: DAVID ZENTZ
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Highlights from Anne’s 2023-24 season included performances of the Philip Glass Violin Concerto No.1 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and the Prague Philharmonia; the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on its U.S. tour; the world premiere of Billy Childs’s requiem In The Arms of the Beloved, with the Los Angeles Master Chorale; an appearance on NPR’s popular Tiny Desk series; Artistic Director at the Laguna Beach Music Festival, where she gave several world premieres including New Chaconne, a new work Philip Glass composed for her.
Recent highlights included appearances with the L.A. Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel in Los Angeles, and on tour at Carnegie Hall — marking the L.A. Phil’s return to Carnegie Hall in over 32 years — and at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City. In 2022 Anne premiered Blue Electra, a new violin concerto by Michael Daugherty, which received massive critical acclaim at The Kennedy Center with Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra.
Anne has been called “the Wonder Woman of commissioning” by The Strad and worked closely with some of the most important composers of the last half century, including Arvo Pärt (Estonian Lullaby), Einojuhani Rautavaara (Fantasia, his final complete work), John Corigliano (cadenzas for the Beethoven Violin Concerto; Lullaby for Natalie), Arturo Márquez (Fandango), Michael Daugherty (Blue Electra), Mason Bates and Adam Schoenberg (violin concertos), Jakub Ciupiński, Jennifer Higdon, Samuel Jones, Morten Lauridsen, Wynton Marsalis, Akira Miyoshi, Gene Pritsker, Somei Satoh, and Joseph Schwantner, performing world premieres with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Nashville, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Helsinki, Hyogo, Leipzig, London, Lyon, and New Zealand.
The violinist’s first national television appearances were on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, at age 11, followed by performances that include Evening At Pops with John Williams, CBS Sunday Morning, Great Performances, Countdown with Keith Olbermann (in a segment that was the third most popular story of that year), The Emmy Awards, and The View. John Williams personally chose Anne to perform the theme from Schindler’s List for a Great Performances PBS telecast, and Arvo Pärt invited her to be his guest soloist at the opening ceremony concerts of his new center and concert hall in Estonia.
Krzysztof Penderecki selected Anne to perform the Beethoven Violin Concerto at the 40th Pablo Casals Festival with the Montreal Symphony, which was broadcast on A&E. Anne also premiered Samuel Jones’s Violin Concerto with the All-Star Orchestra led by Gerard Schwarz in a nationwide PBS broadcast special and a Naxos DVD release. Her recording of Somei Satoh’s Birds in Warped Time II was used by architect Michael Arad for his award-winning design submission, which today has become The World Trade Center Memorial in lower Manhattan. Other career highlights include a performance of the Barber Violin Concerto at the Australian Bicentennial Concert for an audience of 750,000 in Sydney Harbour; performances for the Emperor and Empress Akihito of Japan; for Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, in a Museumplein Concert with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; and “The Star-Spangled Banner” at T-Mobile Park in Seattle and Dodger Stadium. She was profiled on NPR’s Morning Edition with Linda Wertheimer and All Things Considered with Robert Siegel, and she curated “Living American” on Sirius XM Radio’s Symphony Hall.
Anne has been featured in commercials and advertising campaigns including Anne Klein, shot by legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz; J.Jill; Northwest Airlines; DDI Japan; and TDK; and was the inspiration for the main character’s career path in the novel The Engagements, by the
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popular author J. Courtney Sullivan. She collaborated with children’s book author and illustrator Kristine Papillon on Crumpet the Trumpet, appearing as the character Violetta the violinist, and featured in a documentary about legendary radio personality Jim Svejda. Anne has collaborated with a diverse array of artists including jazz icons Chris Botti and Wynton Marsalis; avant-garde musician Ryuichi Sakamoto; electronic music pioneer Isao Tomita; pop-era act Il Divo; and singer, Michael Bolton.
Anne was born in San Diego and grew up in Southern California, where she and her mother would travel eight hours, round trip, from the Mojave Desert to Pasadena for lessons with Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld at the predecessor of the Colburn School of Performing Arts. Anne moved to New York at the age of 14 to study at The Juilliard School with the legendary violin instructor Dorothy DeLay, and with Masao Kawasaki and Felix Galimir; she signed with management at 16; and recorded her debut album of the Barber and Bruch Violin Concertos with the RPO at Abbey Road Studios at 18. She has received the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Distinguished Alumna Award, and an Honorary Doctorate from The Colburn School. She serves on the Board of Trustees of The Juilliard School and was recently honored by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Anne performs on Larsen Strings with the Ex-Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesù, dated 1741, considered by many to be the finest-sounding violin in existence.
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PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born May 7, 1840 in Votkinsk, Russia, and died November 6, 1893 in St. Petersburg. Romeo and Juliet was composed during the last months of 1869, and extensively revised the following year. Nikolai Rubinstein conducted the Russian Musical Society in the premiere, in Moscow on March 16, 1870. The score calls for woodwinds plus piccolo and English horn, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass drum, harp and strings. Duration is about 19 minutes. This piece was last performed by the orchestra October 18-20, 2019, with Alexander Shelley conducting.
Romeo and Juliet was written when Tchaikovsky was 29. It was his first masterpiece. For a decade he had been involved with the intense financial, personal and artistic struggles that mark the maturing years of most creative figures. Advice and guidance often flowed his way during that time, and one who dispensed it freely to anyone who would listen was Mili Balakirev, one of the group of amateur composers known in English as “The Five” (and in Russian as “The Mighty Handful”) who sought to create a nationalistic music specifically Russian in style. In May 1869, Balakirev suggested to Tchaikovsky that Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet would be an appropriate subject for a musical composition, and he even offered the young composer a detailed program and an outline for the form of the piece. Tchaikovsky took the advice to heart, and he consulted closely with Balakirev during the composition of the work. Though his help came close to meddling, Balakirev’s influence seems to have had a strong positive effect on the finished composition.
Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet is among the most successful reconciliations in the orchestral repertory of a specific literary program with the requirements of logical musical structure. The
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work is in carefully constructed sonata form, with introduction and coda. The slow opening section, in chorale style, depicts Friar Lawrence. The exposition begins with a vigorous, syncopated theme depicting the conflict between the Montagues and the Capulets. The melee subsides and a lyrical theme (used here as a contrasting second subject) is sung by the English horn to represent Romeo’s passion; a tender, sighing phrase for muted violins suggests Juliet’s response. A stormy development section utilizing the driving main theme and music from the introduction denotes the continuing feud between the families and Friar Lawrence’s urgent pleas for peace. The crest of the fight ushers in the recapitulation, which is a considerably compressed version of the exposition. Juliet’s sighs again provoke the ardor of Romeo, whose motive is given a grand setting that marks the work’s emotional high point. The tempo slows, the mood darkens, and the coda emerges with the sense of impending doom. The themes of the conflict and of Friar Lawrence’s entreaties sound again, but a funereal drum beats out the cadence of the lovers’ fatal pact. Romeo’s motto appears for a final time in a poignant transformation before the closing woodwind chords evoke visions of the flight to celestial regions.
FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 Mendelssohn dated the finished score of his Violin Concerto on December 16, 1844. Though he did most of the work during that year, the first ideas for the piece originated six years earlier, in 1838. The Concerto is dedicated to Ferdinand David, the soloist in the premiere at the Leipzig Gewandhaus concert of March 13, 1845, conducted by the Danish composer and close friend of Mendelssohn, Niels Gade. The score calls for woodwinds, horns and trumpets in pairs, timpani and strings. Duration is about 26 minutes. The orchestra last performed this piece October 15-17, 2021 with Christopher Dragon conducting and Simone Porter on violin.
“I would like to compose a violin concerto for next winter,” Mendelssohn wrote in July 1838 to his friend violinist Ferdinand David. “One in E minor keeps running through my head, and the opening gives me no peace.” It was for David that Mendelssohn planned and wrote his only mature Violin Concerto. Their friendship began when the two first met at about the age of fifteen while the young violinist was on a concert tour through Germany. They were delighted to discover the coincidence that David had been born only eleven months after Mendelssohn in the same neighborhood in Hamburg. Already well formed even in those early years, David’s playing was said to have combined the serious, classical restraint of Ludwig Spohr, his teacher, the elegance of the French tradition, and the technical brilliance of Paganini. Mendelssohn, who admired both the man and his playing, appointed David concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra when he became that organization’s music director in 1835, and they remained close friends and musical allies. When Mendelssohn’s health was feeble, David looked after much of the routine activity of the Gewandhaus, where he spent 37 years, and he even stepped in to conduct the premiere of Mendelssohn’s oratorio St. Paul when the composer was stricken during a measles epidemic in 1836.
Despite his good intentions and the gentle prodding of David to complete his Violin Concerto, Mendelssohn did not get around to serious work on the score until 1844. He had been busy with other composition and conducting projects, including a particularly troublesome one as director of the Academy of Arts in Berlin. The requirements of that position — which included composing the incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream — took much of his time, and it was not until he resigned from the post in 1844 that he was able to complete the Violin Concerto.
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The Concerto opens with a soaring violin melody whose lyricism exhibits a grand passion tinged with restless melancholy. Some glistening passagework for the violinist leads through a transition melody to the second theme, a quiet, sunny strain shared by woodwinds and soloist. More glistening arabesques from the violinist and a quickened rhythm close the exposition. The succinct development section is largely based on the opening theme. In this Concerto, Mendelssohn moved the cadenza forward from its traditional place as an appendage near the end of the first movement to become an integral component of the structure, here separating the development from the recapitulation. It leads seamlessly into the restatement of the movement’s thematic material.
The thread of a single note sustained by the bassoon carries the Concerto to the Andante, a wordless song of sentiment and elegance. This slow movement’s center section is distinguished by its rustling accompaniment and bittersweet minor-mode melody. A dozen measures of chordal writing for strings link this movement with the finale, an effervescent sonata form that moves with the aerial grace of which Mendelssohn was a master.
JEAN SIBELIUS (1865-1957)
Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52
Jean Sibelius was born December 8, 1865 in Hämeenlinna, Finland, and died September 20, 1957 in Järveenpää, Finland. The Third Symphony was composed in 1904-1907, and premiered on September 25, 1907 in Helsinki, conducted by the composer. The score calls for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings. Duration is about 29 minutes. Jeffrey Kahane conducted when the orchestra last performed this piece May 29-June 1, 2009.
The successful premiere of the Second Symphony in March 1902 confirmed the distinctive genius of Jean Sibelius to the international musical community. The composer’s personal life at the time, however, was not without difficulty. Though he received sizeable royalties from his compositions and an annual stipend from the Finnish government, he was a poor money manager, and mired his family, which then included two young daughters, in continuous debt and some financial distress. Exacerbating his unsettled state of mind was a painful ear infection that did not respond to treatment. Thoughts of the deafness of Beethoven and Smetana plagued him, and he feared that, at age 37, he might be losing his hearing. In June 1902, he also began having trouble with his throat, and he jumped to the conclusion that his health was about to give way, even wondering how much time he might have left to work. He persevered, however, and completed his Violin Concerto in 1903. (A benign tumor in his throat was discovered in 1909, and successfully removed. Sibelius enjoyed sterling health for the rest of his days, and lived to the ripe age of 91.)
For relaxation during that anxious period in his life, Sibelius frequented the local drinking establishments in Helsinki, and his generous and uncomplaining wife, Aino, often found him unaccounted for after a day or two, when he would resurface with apologies. In addition to the concern such profligacy caused his family, Sibelius also regretted the time stolen from creative work that his excessive drinking caused. By early 1904, he and Aino had determined to face the problem. “It was necessary for me to get away from Helsinki,” Sibelius told his biographer Karl Ekman. “My art demanded another environment. In Helsinki, all melody died within me. Besides, I was too sociable to be able to refuse invitations that interfered with my composition. I found it very difficult to say no. I had to get away.” He scouted out a lot for a new country
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house overlooking Lake Tuusula, some twenty miles north of Helsinki, but found the waterfront property too expensive, and settled instead for a nearby forest site at Järvenpää (“Lake’s End”; Hallwag’s atlas of Europe lists twelve towns by that name in Finland). He engaged a builder, approved plans for a log house, and followed the progress of the project eagerly through the summer of 1904. His new home, named Ainola in honor of his wife, was ready in September, and the move to new surroundings renewed his spirit and fired his creative imagination. Ainola was to be his home until he died more than fifty years later. Almost before the boxes were unpacked, he notified a friend, “Have begun my Third Symphony.”
After starting the Third Symphony with enthusiasm in September 1904, Sibelius laid the project aside during the following year to revise the Violin Concerto, to compose the incidental music for a production in Helsinki of Maeterlinck’s Pélleas et Mélisande, and to undertake conducting tours to Germany and Britain. He was particularly gratified at his reception in England in November 1905, his first visit to that country, where his host was the composer and conductor Sir Granville Bantock, who had been introducing the local audiences to his music. (Bantock entertained him so liberally that Sibelius said he “never made the acquaintance of English coinage.”) While conducting in London, Sibelius met Henry Wood, director of the popular Promenade Concerts, and he agreed to lead the London Philharmonic in the premiere of his still gestating Third Symphony in that city in March 1907. The year 1906 was devoted not to the Symphony, however, but to the tone poem Pohjola’s Daughter and the incidental music for Hjalmar Procopé’s Belshazzar’s Feast, in which event the Symphony was not completed in time for its scheduled introduction in London. Sibelius finally finished the score during the summer of 1907, three years after its conception, and conducted its first performance in Helsinki on September 25th; London did not hear the piece until the following February. The score was dedicated to Bantock upon its publication.
“The predominating feature of the Symphony,” wrote Karl Ekman in his biography of the composer, “is the Apollonian joy in light, clarity, strength and chaste form.” The opening Allegro is the most purely classical structure in any of Sibelius’ symphonies. Its sonata form begins with a simple but beautifully proportioned main theme given unaccompanied by the low strings and then shared with the rest of the orchestra. A diatonic passage of increasing animation leads to three unison notes from trumpets and trombones to herald the cellos’ presentation of the subsidiary theme, a typically Sibelian melody comprising a long-held note followed by a quick flourish. A quiet phrase of slow string scales in contrary motion serves as the gateway to the development section. The recapitulation of the earlier themes is signaled by the loudest dynamic climax of the movement and a drone pedal note in the basses. A hymnal coda closes the movement.
The gently melancholic second movement is a lovely intermezzo with delicately shifting rhythmic accents. There are no strong contrasts to disrupt the easy flow of this music, just short chordal passages for divided cellos and woodwinds to mark the movement’s mid-point.
The two-part closing movement fuses the formal functions of scherzo and finale. Its first section, in spirited 6/8 meter, begins the process that the composer called “the crystallization of ideas from chaos.” It comprises thematic bits and fragments, sometimes melded, sometimes diffused, which arrange themselves into no obvious formal pattern save the continuous accumulation of energy as the music unfolds. Continuity and thematic integrity are achieved in the movement’s second section, the Symphony’s finale, which is based on a short-breathed theme intoned by the low strings. The melody acquires a rhythmic ostinato as it proceeds, and grows to a stentorian statement by the full orchestra before reaching its heroic close with a broad proclamation of the notes of the C major triad.
