OCT 21, 23

Concerts of Thursday, October 21, 2021 8:00pm Saturday, October 23, 2021 8:00pm Sunday, October 24, 2021 3:00pm

JUANJO MENA, conductor

MIDORI, violin JAMES LEE III (b. 1975) Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula (2011) 10 MINS PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840–1893)

Concerto in D Major for Violin and Orchestra,

Op. 35 (1881) 36 MINS

I. Allegro moderato

II. Canzonetta: Andante (attacca)

III. Finale: Allegro vivacissimo

Midori, violin INTERMISSION 20 MINS

ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810–1856)

Symphony No. 4 in D Minor,

Op. 120 (rev. 1851)

I. Ziemlich langsam. Lebhaft

II. Romanze: Ziemlich langsam

III. Scherzo: Lebhaft (attacca)

IV. Langsam. Lebhaft 29 MINS

The use of cameras or recording devices during the concert is strictly prohibited. Please be kind to those around you and silence your mobile phone and other hand-held devices.

by Noel Morris

Program Annotator

Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula is scored for two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, celeste and strings.

James Lee III, born 1975 in St. Joseph, Michigan, cites as his major composition teachers Michael Daugherty, William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, Betsy Jolas, Susan Botti, Erik Santos and James Aikman. He graduated with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan in 2005. As a composition fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in the summer of 2002, he added Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Gandolfi, Steven Mackey and Kaija Saariaho to his roster of teachers, and he studied conducting with Stefan Asbury. Lee’s orchestral works have been commissioned and premiered by the National Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony Orchestra, and the orchestras of Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Omaha, Pasadena, Memphis, Grand Rapids, Cincinnati, Atlanta and Akron, and have been conducted by such artists as Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, Michael Tilson Thomas, Juanjo Mena, David Lockington, Thomas Wilkins and others. Chamber organizations such as the Montrose Trio, Ritz Chamber Players, and the Harlem Chamber Players have performed and premiered his music. Lee is also a winner of a Charles Ives Scholarship and the Wladimir Lakond Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and he is Professor of Music at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD. From the composer: Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula is a festive work for orchestra. The word Sukkot is a Hebrew word for the “Feast of Tabernacles.” In the biblical days, this holiday was celebrated on the 15th day of the month of Tishrei (late September to late October). It was the most joyous month of the fall festivals that God mandated the Hebrews to observe. It was also a thanksgiving celebration for the

First and Most Recent ASO Performances: October 20 & 22, 2016, Joseph Young, conductor

blessings of the fall harvest. Orion’s Nebula refers to the Orion constellation in space. The structure of this nebula forms a roughly spherical cloud that peaks in density near the core. The cloud displays a range of velocities and turbulence, particularly around the core region. This work is loosely constructed in a ternary form of seven small sections. It is a musical commentary on the eschatological application of the antitypical “day of atonement” (Yom Kippur) and the “feast of tabernacles” (Sukkot). The seven sections are briefly summarized below: Reminiscences of the Feast of Trumpets, (Rosh Hashanah), and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) by percussive forceful sounds of the snare and bass drums open the work. This is further enhanced by the horns, which imitate the calls of the shofar (a horn used for Jewish religious purposes). The full orchestra continues to a cadence foreshadowing the grand advent of God. The woodwinds follow with joyful passages of flourishes and dancelike celebrations, which imitate the people’s reception of the Messiah. As this music continues, the motives pass on to the percussion section, piano, harp, and eventually the strings. Previous melodies and motives are developed and transformed among the tutti orchestra. This section is a musical commentary celebrating the Second Coming of God. The Orion constellation is the one constellation mentioned specifically in the Old Testament. Revelation 14 presents imagery of a harvest and later in the Book, the city of the New Jerusalem is presented as coming down from heaven. The muted brass, singing violins, percussion instruments, and woodwinds are employed which is intended to evoke celestial images of the Messiah coming down out of heaven through the Orion constellation first, the redeemed saints traveling through the constellation, and finally the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. At various points, violins soar in the higher registers that tend to have a quality of weightlessness. Trills among the strings cease as they continue to climb to heights of bliss in paradise. I have created a leitmotif for the name Michael that occurs in an earlier orchestral work of mine. This melody is heard in the

horns as we move onto the next section. The bass and snare drums provide a reprise of the “shofar theme.” This continues with orchestral exclamations of joy. There are passages of “call-and-response” among the ensemble in the final celebration that continues until the work ends with an explosion of sound. —James Lee III

Concerto in D Major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 35 In addition to the solo violin, Concerto in D major is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings.

“I went one evening to my future wife and told her frankly that I could not love her, but that I would be a devoted and grateful friend.” Thus, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky got engaged. At the time, he believed his bride, Antonina Milyukova, could make his life “peaceful and happy.” She didn’t. Just six months before, he had been in love with Josef Kotek, a violin student at the Moscow Conservatory. “My only need,” wrote Tchaikovsky, “is for him to know that I love him endlessly.” Although there has been enormous speculation about Tchaikovsky’s motives for marrying, the only thing we know for sure is that it was not for love. While Antonina claimed to have loved him from afar, they barely knew each other. They married on July 18, 1877, before a handful of witnesses that included his (likely) former lover Josef Kotek. By August 8, Tchaikovsky desperately needed to get away from her. “I leave in an hour’s time,” he wrote. “A few days longer, and I swear I should have gone mad.” And he wasn’t exaggerating. In less than three weeks he had descended into a deep depression and found himself utterly unable to work. After spending the rest of the summer with his sister, he returned to his bride for just two weeks in the fall before deciding the marriage was unworkable. At the same time, he developed an intense bond with another woman. Kotek had been working for a wealthy, rather reclusive widow named Nadezhda von Meck. She shared Kotek’s interest in Tchaikovsky’s music. Before long, she and the

First ASO Performance: January 25, 1948, Robert Harrison, violin, Henry Sopkin, conductor

Most Recent ASO Performances: November 7, 8, & 9, 2019, James Ehnes, violin, Donald Runnicles, conductor

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS composer became pen pals. Taking special care never to meet face-to-face, the two of them developed a deeply personal and gratifying friendship. She became his muse and benefactress (and a great source of letters for future music historians). In 1878, still reeling from his failed marriage, Tchaikovsky took an extended trip with his brother to Europe. Gradually, he started writing music again and his mood brightened. In Clarens, Switzerland, they enjoyed the use of von Meck’s villa and called on

Kotek to join them there. Perched on the shores of Lake Geneva, Kotek and Tchaikovsky shared musical evenings together. It was a reading of Eduard Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, with Kotek on violin and Tchaikovsky at the piano, that lit the fire for a new violin concerto. Sketching the piece in just eleven days, Tchaikovsky worked through the solo passages with the help of Kotek and dedicated the concerto to the famous Hungarian violinist Leopold Auer. This proved to be a major disappointment for the composer; Auer took one look at the piece and refused to play it. Two years passed before the Russian violinist Adolph Brodsky took up the concerto in Vienna and gave its world premiere, which prompted a scathing review from the famous music critic Eduard Hanslick.

“Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto gives us for the first time the hideous notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear,” he wrote. And the fragile Tchaikovsky hung on every word of it, committing the entire thing to memory. As the years went by, it seems that Auer grew to regret his early judgment of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. Stumbling over various explanations, he claimed he had thought the piece needed work or that he had doubted its intrinsic worth before saying in 1912: “The concerto has made its way in the world. And that is the most important thing.” Indeed. Today, Auer is best remembered, not for his playing, but for the violinists he taught, including Nathan Milstein, Efrem Zimbalist, Mischa Ehlman and Jascha Heifetz—all major artists who helped propel the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto into a concert-hall favorite.

Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120 Symphony No. 4 is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings.

In May of 1841, Robert Schumann was riding high. He had recently married the love of his life, he had a baby on the way, and his First Symphony was a resounding success. He could look back on a journey of self-discovery, which started with a pivot from studying law to studying piano at the age of 20. Back in 1830, he had quit university and moved in with his piano teacher, Friedrich Wieck, where he became one of two star piano students—the other was Wieck’s nine-year-old daughter, Clara, a child prodigy. As months turned into years, Clara grew on Robert. By the time she was 15, her father was running interference, trying to keep her away from the temperamental young man. Now a formidable virtuoso, she was dispatched on a series of concert tours, which practically drove her into Robert’s arms. They set up a secret system to exchange letters, and their love blossomed.

In September of 1840, the day before her 21st birthday, Clara and Robert exchanged wedding vows. By then, Robert had shifted his focus toward composition and music journalism. That same year, with his head filled with love and romance, he wrote more than 150 songs. In January of 1841, Schumann turned his focus to the orchestra, completing a draft of his first symphony in just four days. Two months later, Felix Mendelssohn conducted the premiere of the symphony, which was then picked up by the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel. Continuing at a dizzying pace, Schumann wrote the Overture, Scherzo and Finale in E Major as well as the first movement of what became the Piano Concerto—all before the fall.

For her part, Clara treated her husband’s composition career like a family business. “Robert’s mind is very creative now, and he began a symphony yesterday which is to consist of one movement,

First ASO Performances: November 20, 21, & 22, 1969, James Levine, conductor

Most Recent ASO Performances: April 9, 11, & 12, 2015, Lionel Bringuier, conductor

COMMONS WIKIMEDIA

but with an Adagio and finale,” she wrote toward the end of May. “I have heard nothing of it as yet, but from seeing Robert’s doings, and from hearing D minor echoing wildly in the distance, I know in advance that this will be another work emerging from the depths of his soul.” This time, Robert aspired to create something different: instead of writing a symphony in which each movement is effectively a unique piece of music (which, for the most part, was the norm up until that point), he fashioned a far more integrated work, building each movement out of material from the symphony’s opening bars. The premiere took place on December 6, 1841. This time, Mendelssohn was not available to conduct, and so Clara stepped in as a headliner alongside the piano superstar Franz Liszt. Together they played a duet, and Schumann’s D minor symphony received its first performance. The piece elicited mixed reactions; Breitkopf & Härtel declined to published it, and Schumann set it aside. After taking a break from the symphonic form, Schumann wrote the piece now known as Symphony No. 2 in 1845 and followed it with the Symphony No. 3 in 1850. Around that time (1850), Schumann accepted a position as music director of the orchestra and choral society in Düsseldorf. It was for the Lower Rhenish Music Festival that he returned to his D minor symphony. Reworking whole sections, adding transitions and thickening the orchestration, he reissued the D minor Symphony at the festival in 1853. It was published as Symphony No. 4.

MICHAL NOVAK JUANJO MENA, CONDUCTOR

Juanjo Mena began his conducting career in his native Spain as Artistic Director of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra in 1999. His uncommon talent was soon recognized internationally with appointments as Principal Guest Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic and Chief Guest Conductor of the Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. In 2011 he was named Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic which he led for seven seasons, taking the orchestra on tours of Europe and Asia and conducting annual televised concerts at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms. His BBC tenure featured, notably, “thrilling” (The Guardian) performances of Bruckner Symphonies, a cycle of Schubert Symphonies and set new standards for the interpretation of Spanish and South American repertoire. He currently serves as Principal Conductor of the Cincinnati May Festival, the longest running choral festival in North America, where he has been expanding the scope of the legendary institution with new commissions and community engagement. In the 20/21 season, Juanjo Mena returns to conduct the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic and the NHK Symphony as well as a number of orchestras across Spain. He debuts with the Czech Philharmonic and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.

Juanjo Mena studied conducting with Sergiu Celibidache following his musical education at the Madrid Royal Conservatory where he was mentored by Carmelo Bernaola and Enrique García Asensio. In 2017, he was awarded the Spanish National Music Award. He lives with his family in his native Basque Country.

MIDORI, VIOLIN

Midori is a visionary artist, activist and educator who explores and builds connections between music and the human experience and breaks with traditional boundaries, which makes her one of the most outstanding violinists of our time. In concert around the world, she transfixes audiences, bringing together graceful precision and intimate expression. In recognition of her work as an artist and humanitarian, she serves as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In recognition of her lifetime of contributions to American culture, Midori is the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and was celebrated by Yo-Yo Ma, Bette Midler and John Lithgow, among others, during the May 2021 Honors ceremonies in Washington, DC. Midori was born in Osaka in 1971 and began her violin studies with her mother, Setsu Goto, at an early age. In 1982, conductor Zubin Mehta invited the then 11-yearold Midori to perform with the New York Philharmonic in the orchestra’s annual New Year’s Eve concert, where the foundation was laid for her following career. Midori is the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and is a Distinguished Visiting Artist at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. Midori plays the 1734 Guarnerius del Gesù “ex-Huberman.” She uses four bows—two by Dominique Peccatte, one by François Peccatte and one by Paul Siefried.

TIMOTHY GREENFIELD