2014 Blossom Music Festival August 2

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BLOSSOM MUSIC FESTIVAL S

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saturday August 2

RAMEAU, RAVEL, & RACHMANINOFF The Cleveland Orchestra Johannes Debus, conductor Benjamin Grosvenor, piano

Johannes Debus German-born conductor Johannes Debus has served as music director of the Canadian Opera Company since 2009. In opera and symphonic programs, he leads music ranging from Baroque to contemporary. He made his Cleveland Orchestra debut in August 2012.

Born in southwest Germany, Johannes Debus joined the Heidelberg cathedral choir at the age of four, and later took piano, organ, and violin lessons. He obtained his formal music education at the Hamburg Hochschule für Musik/Theater. Mr. Debus subsequently was engaged at Frankfurt Opera, first as répétiteur/rehearsal pianist and then as kapellmeister and principal conductor.

During his ten-year tenure in Frankfurt, he led an extensive repertoire — including operas by Thomas Adès, Berg, Gounod, Massenet, Mozart, Rossini, Strauss, Verdi, and Wagner.

In 2007, Johannes Debus made his English National Opera debut in a new production of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha and, in 2008, made his debut at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich leading Richard Strauss’s Elektra. He has also led productions with the Berlin State Opera and San Francisco Opera. Mr. Debus was invited to replace James Levine for a performance of Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood in 2010.

Mr. Debus made his Canadian Opera Company debut in 2008, conducting Prokofiev’s War and Peace. The following year, he was named the company’s music director. His contract was recently extended through the 2016-17 season. In addition to his work on the company’s mainstage productions, Mr. Debus is committed to promoting and showcasing the Canadian Opera Company orchestra’s musicians, and created a five-concert chamber music festival, which begins its third season in 2014-15.

As a guest conductor, Johannes Debus has led orchestras and appeared at festivals on both sides of the Atlantic, including engagements with the Heidelberg Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestra della Toscana, as well as appearances at the Biennale di Venezia, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Lincoln Center Festival, Luminato Festival, Ruhrtriennale, Schwetzinger Festspiele, Spoleto Festival, and the Suntory Summer Festival.

An advocate of new music, Mr. Debus has led a wide range of world premieres and works by 20th and 21st century composers. These include Salvatore Sciarrino’s Macbeth and Luciano Berio’s Un re in ascolto. Mr. Debus has guest conducted the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, and Musikfabrik.

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Conductor

2014 Blossom Festival

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BLOSSOM MUSIC FESTIVAL

Saturday evening, August 2, 2014, at 8:00 p.m.

THE CLEVEL AND ORCHESTRA J O H A N N E S D E B U S , conductor

JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU

Suite from Les Indes Galantes

MAURICE RAVEL

Piano Concerto in G major

(1683-1764)

(1875-1937)

1. Allegramente 2. Adagio assai 3. Presto BENJAMIN GROSVENOR, piano

INTERMISSION MAURICE RAVEL

Pavane for a Dead Princess

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF

Symphonic Dances, Opus 45

(1873-1943)

[Pavane pour une infante défunte]

1. Non allegro 2. Andante con moto (Tempo di valse) 3. Lento assai — Allegro vivace

Benjamin Grosvenor’s appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra is made possible by a gift to the Orchestra’s Guest Artist Fund from Dr. and Mrs. Murray M. Bett.

This concert is dedicated to Marguerite B. Humphrey in recognition of her extraordinary generosity in support of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2013-14 Annual Fund.

Media Partners: WKSU 89.7 and The Plain Dealer

Blossom Music Festival

Program: August 2

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Suite from Les Indes Galantes composed 1734-35, with additional material added in 1736

by

JEAN-PHILIPPE

RAMEAU

born September 25, 1683 Dijon, France died September 12, 1764 Paris

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R A M E A U ’ S F I V E T R A G É D I E S - LY R I Q U E S were intended to rival contemporary stage drama, whether that of the Greeks or of the 18th century theater represented by Corneille and Racine, with the powerful addition of “modern” music. His six opéras-ballets were, in contrast, unashamedly designed merely to entertain. They made little pretense at continuity of plot, but included as wide a variety of music as possible, with the constant decoration of singing and dancing. A feast of colorful costumes and exotic décors added a further dimension of expensive glamor. Les Indes Galantes [literally “The Gallant Indies”] was the first of these, composed two years after Rameau’s first tragédie-lyrique, and it was a huge success, being performed 64 times within two years of its premiere in August 1735. Revivals continued until 1761.

When he took up composing for the stage at the age of fift y, Jean-Philippe Rameau was bedeviled by the accusation that he was an organist, a keyboard musician, and a famous theoretician, not an opera composer. There were entrenched interests to face as well. One critic called Les Indes Galantes a “perpetual witchery.” Most Parisians were bewitched in a positive sense, however, by evocations of exotic peoples and their strange customs, for although the European aristocracy regarded other races with amusement and disdain, there were often implications that they did things (love, for example, and worship) in a simple, natural manner that deserved admiration, even before Rousseau attributed nobility to the savage.

European nations are represented in the work’s Prologue, followed by four distant cultures in the four entrées that follow: Turks, Incas, Persians, and North Americans (“Les Sauvages,” from Illinois! — based on a real-life episode from 1725, when a group of “Indian Chiefs” visited Paris and danced for King Louis XV). Representing these peoples in verse, in dress, in dance, and in music was a challenge all the participant artists rose to, not least Rameau with his well-recognized command of orchestration and fanciful dances. This was not an ethnographical exercise, it was fresh, imaginative, and creative within the artistic language of the day.

This weekend’s suite includes the following movements: The Ouverture belongs to the French type, with a broad About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

opening followed by a fugal allegro, this one featuring an attractive leaping figure at each entry of the subject.

The Musette, from the Prologue, imitates the bagpipe with an unmoving drone bass, at least for the first part. A middle section is in the minor key.

The Deuxième Air pour les Bostangis (Persians) is energetic, with strong unisons.

The Incas, in the Air des Incas, are engaged in solemn worship of the sun. This is the movement where Rameau shows off his command of advanced harmony.

The savages of North America dance a rather civilized pair of Menuets, the formality strengthened by trumpets and drums.

The depiction of African slaves, in Air pour les esclaves Africains, an episode in the Turkish entrée, is mournful and entirely sympathetic if Rameau’s lovely melody says what it seems to say.

The Air pour les amants qui suivent Bellone is flighty, with flutes, and thin in texture like a delicate chase. Bellone and his friends are pursued by delectable ladies who are so often represented in the 18th century as “shepherdesses.”

The final Tambourins is a swift string of notes over an almost monotone bass. The dance calls for “tambourins,” but it is a matter of debate whether these are tambourines or the larger long drum from the south of France. Yet a concern for authenticity seems strangely out of place when we hear the exotic Indes Galantes.

At a Glance Rameau wrote his opéraballet (or ballet heroque) in 1734-35, to a libretto by Louis Fuzulier. It was first performed on August 23, 1735, at Paris’s Palais-Royal by the Académie Royale de Musique.

This suite chosen by conductor Johannes Debus for this weekend runs about 15 minutes in performance.

The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets, timpani, tambourin, and strings.

—Hugh Macdonald © 2014

Blossom Festival 2014

About the Music

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Benjamin Grosvenor British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor is acclaimed as a rising star among a new generation of pianists. When he signed to record with Decca Classics in 2011, he was the youngest British musician to ever do so. He is making his Cleveland Orchestra debut with this weekend’s concerts (Friday at Severance Hall and Saturday night at Blossom).

Benjamin Grosvenor first came to prominence as the winner of the keyboard final of the 2004 BBC Young Musician Competition at the age of eleven. Since then, he has performed with the London Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philharmonia, RAI Torino, and the Tokyo Symphony in such venues as London’s Barbican Centre and Royal Festival Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Singapore’s Victoria Hall.

At age nineteen, Mr. Grosvenor performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on the First Night of the 2011 BBC Proms. He returned the following year, appearing with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. His recent and upcoming engagements include concerts with Berlin’s Konzerthaus Orchestra, Orquesta de Euskadi, San Francisco Symphony, and National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C. His schedule also includes recital debuts at the Boston Celebrity Piano Series, Club Musical de Québec, Salle Gaveau, Southbank Centre, and Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. He performs chamber music with the Elias Quartet, Endellion String Quartet, and Escher String Quartet.

Mr. Grosvenor’s Decca discography features works by Chopin, Gershwin, Ravel, and Saint-Saëns, and transcriptions by Percy Grainger and Leopold Godowsky. His earlier recordings on EMI include Chopin rarities for the 200th anniversary edition of Chopin’s complete works, as well as his debut solo recording.

Among Benjamin Grosvenor’s honors are a Classic Brits Critics Award, a Diapason d’Or Jeune Talent Award, Gramophone’s Young Artist of the Year and Instrumental Award, and a UK Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Young Talent. He has been featured in two BBC television documentaries and CNN’s Human to Hero series.

The youngest of five brothers, Benjamin Grosvenor was born in 1992. His mother is a piano teacher, and he began playing at age 6. He graduated in 2012 from the Royal Academy of Music, where he was awarded the Queen’s commendation for excellence. Mr. Grosvenor has studied with Christopher Elton, Leif Ove Andsnes, Stephen Hough, and Arnaldo Cohen.

For more information, visit www.benjamingrosvenor.co.uk.

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Soloist

Blossom Music Festival

Piano Concerto in G major

composed 1929-31, incorporating some ideas from as early as 1911

by

Maurice

RAVEL born March 7, 1875

Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées died December 28, 1937 Paris

Blossom Music Festival

I T W A S R A V E L’ S original plan to write a concerto for his own use. In his public appearances as a concert pianist, he had preferred mostly to play easier pieces like the Sonatine he’d written in 1903-05 and was all too conscious that his technique was not up to the more demanding works he’d created, such as Gaspard de la nuit from 1908.

But, as he began creating the new work for piano and orchestra, rather than write a piece within his own capacity, he decided to write a concerto of proper difficulty — and simply acquire the technique to play it himself. Thus his composition hours, already long and arduous compared with his earlier facility (by the end of the 1920s he was aware of the failing brain activity that cruelly silenced his last years), were interspersed with hours devoted to practicing the études of Czerny and Chopin in an unavailing attempt, at the age of 55, to perfect his digital skills (a.k.a. keyboard fingering, not the computer variety we think of as “digital skills” today). It was only once the work was finished, late in 1931, with a première not many weeks away, that Ravel abandoned his aspirations and turned to Marguerite Long to give the first performance instead. This she did on January 14, 1932, in the Salle Pleyel, Paris, with Ravel conducting.

Gustave Samazeuilh recounted that in 1911 he and Ravel spent a holiday in the Basque region of Spain (where both of them had been born) and that Ravel sketched a “Basque Concerto” for piano and orchestra. Without the right idea for a central linking movement, Ravel abandoned the work, only to bring parts of it back to life twenty years later within the G-major concerto. This at least suggests a Basque origin for some of the themes, although it is easier, without any general familiarity with Basque music, to recognize that the livelier themes emerge from Ravel’s preoccupation with the brilliant percussive qualities of the piano itself, and that the languorous melodies betray his gift for giving a peculiarly sophisticated edge to the “new” language of jazz.

It is striking that the sound of this concerto differs markedly from that of its sibling, the concerto for left hand, composed at the same time, not just in having ten fingers at work instead of five. Here Ravel concentrated the fingers’ activity About the Music

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At a Glance Ravel composed both of his piano concertos in 1929-31.

The G-major Concerto’s first performance was on January 14, 1932, at a Ravel Festival concert at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, with the composer conducting the Lamoureux Orchestra; the soloist was Marguerite Long, to whom the concerto was dedicated.

The concerto’s first performances in North America were given concurrently on April 22, 1932, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Serge Koussevitzky and with pianist Jesús María Sanromá) and the Philadelphia Orchestra (with conductor Leopold Stokowski and pianist Sylvan Levin).

This concerto runs about 20 minutes in performance.

Ravel scored it for flute, piccolo, oboe, english horn, Eflat (high) and B-flat (regular) clarinet, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, trumpet, trombone, timpani, percussion (bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, triangle, whip, tamtam, woodblock), harp, and strings.

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in the upper reaches of the keyboard and also utilized a small orchestra, more an ensemble of soloists than a grand tutti full orchestra.

Ravel asserted that he composed the G-major Concerto in the spirit of Mozart and Saint-Saëns, two composers of impeccably classical pedigree. The three movements are accordingly laid out on the classical plan, with two quick movements embracing a slow middle one. The first movement in its turn offers both quick and slow sections, the latter being the occasion for some virtuoso melodic flights for solo instruments, notably the bassoon in the first half, the harp and the horn in the second, while the piano is often required to be sweet in one hand and pungent in the other at the same time. (Gershwin’s flattened scale, generally in the minor, is much in evidence.)

Ravel spoke of writing the slow middle movement “one bar at a time” (which is nothing if not cryptic, and certainly not very enlightening), and also referred to Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet as a basis (which is scarcely more helpful, except that of course the idea of melody-with-accompaniment is prominent in both works). The style is pure, both in the simplicity of the piano style and the absence of chromatics, but it also has a constant suggestion of wrong notes in the manner of Erik Satie, the wrongness in Ravel’s case being supremely calculated and . . . exactly right. Simplicity gives way to complexity and the melody returns on the english horn as the piano’s exquisite tracery continues to the end.

The last movement is an unstoppable cascade, with the orchestra again tested to the limit, not just the soloist. The movement is neatly framed, with its opening clustered discords returning as a signing-off at the end.

—Hugh Macdonald © 2014

About the Music

Blossom Music Festival

Pavane for a Dead Princess composed for piano 1899, orchestrated 1910

seems very much to be that of the French composer Erik Satie, whose titles for musical pieces are notoriously absurdist. The French title Pavane pour une infante défunte, usually rendered simply into English as “Pavane for a Dead Princess,” in fact suggests a noblewomen of Spanish origin. Ravel, at 24, was not above teasing his audience with a piece that has nothing Spanish about it (no Infanta or Infante) and is musically not really a pavane, a slow processional dance from the 16th century.

Ravel dedicated this composition to the Princesse de Polignac, Paris’s most generous patron of music, who used her wealth (from Singer sewing machines) and her title (her husband was a composer) to support French musicians.

A small piano piece such as this, composed in 1899, should be compared to the Pièces pittoresques created by Emmanuel Chabrier, which Ravel greatly admired, and some of which, like Ravel’s piece, were later orchestrated.

The tune comes three times, orchestrated differently each time. Its first appearance on the horn (actually intended for old-fashioned hand-horns) is marvelously evocative. There are two episodes, the first of which has a typically Ravelian melody with its emphasis on the second note of each phrase, shared between oboe and strings. The second episode explores the minor key.

—Hugh Macdonald © 2014 THE SPIRIT OF THIS WORK

by

Maurice

RAVEL born March 7, 1875

Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées died December 28, 1937 Paris

At a Glance Ravel wrote Pavane for a Dead Princess in 1899 as a solo piano piece. He created an orchestrated version in 1910, which was premiered on February 27, 1911, in Manchester, England, with conductor Henry Wood at “Gentlemen’s Concert.”

This work runs 5 minutes in performance. Ravel scored it for 2 flutes, oboe, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, harp, and muted strings.

Blossom Music Festival

Hugh Macdonald lives in England and is Avis H. Blewett Professor Emeritus of Music at Washington University in St. Louis and is a noted authority on French music. He has written books on Beethoven, Berlioz, and Scriabin.

About the Music

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Symphonic Dances, Opus 45 composed 1940

by

Sergei

RACHMANINOFF born April 1, 1873 Semyonovo, Russia died March 28, 1943 Beverly Hills, California

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I N H I S Y E A R S O F E X I L E from Russia, Rachmaninoff fought a constant battle with the arbiters of taste, both in Europe and in America, who had decided that modern music had to be . . . modern. His roots were deeply planted in the soil of Russia and in the way of life he led there, and his music had evolved within the great (but relatively recent) Russian tradition, best represented by Tchaikovsky. His technique as a composer and orchestrator was unequaled, and his imagination was never dormant, but his style had little in common with the spirit of the jazz age or the various types of neo-classicism that were coming to life in the first decades of the 20th century.

It was perhaps because his Fourth Piano Concerto had been poorly received in 1927 — nor was the composer satisfied with it himself — that Rachmaninoff cast his next piano concerto as a Rhapsody (in name) and a set of variations on a theme by Paganini (in form). This worked, and the public responded enthusiastically. The same approach brought into being the Symphonic Dances — the Third Symphony had similarly been roughly handled by the press in 1936. So that, rather than a Fourth Symphony, the new work, which turned out to be Rachmaninoff ’s last major composition, was cast originally as Fantastic Dances and then, acknowledging its true identity, as Symphonic Dances.

Ballet was in his mind, in any case, because the great Russian choreographer Mikhail Fokine was planning a ballet using the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, a plan which had Rachmaninoff ’s enthusiastic support. Somehow this never materialized, nor did a Fokine ballet on the Symphonic Dances (owing to Fokine’s death in 1942, followed by Rachmaninoff ’s death a year later).

Perhaps Rachmaninoff did feel this music as dance music, with the powerful stamping rhythm of the first movement echoing ballets by Stravinsky and Prokofiev, and with the fleet waltz rhythm of the second movement suggesting Ravel. The finale is more intricate and elusive, rhythmically, for behind the restless flow of sounds the composer was thinking of Russian and Western chant, the latter appearing as the Dies irae from the Latin Church’s mass, frequently cited by Rachmaninoff in his music, notably in the Paganini Rhapsody. There is also refAbout the Music

Blossom Music Festival

erence to the Russian chant he had already set for chorus in his All-Night Vigil of 1915. These two references emerge as intrinsic to his melodic style, deeply rooted, probably subconsciously, in the chanting of Orthodox priests that he had heard in his childhood. Melodies that move by step, or at least confined to narrow intervals, are readily related to plainchant, and such melodies abound in Rachmaninoff ’s works. The great opening theme of the Second Piano Concerto is of this kind. It is significant also that a similar theme from the First Symphony is quoted at the end of the first movement of the Symphonic Dances, played in a quiet and dignified manner and standing apart from the strong pulse of the rest of the movement.

The first movement is a superb example of how to build the elements of structure from simple materials, in this case a descending triad, weaving under and over firm rhythmic support and planted deeply (with endless chromatic digressions) in the key of C minor. A dialog between oboe and clarinet puts the brakes on for the second section, which is slower, cast in a remote key, and richly melodic. Here an alto saxophone introduces one of Rachmaninoff ’s endless melodies that grow and reshape themselves in a passionate evolution, often hinting at a Russian flavor.

The middle movement is a masterpiece of elegance in a waltz rhythm full of shifts and turns, its main tune being a plaintive melody first presented by english horn and oboe in partnership. The orchestration is dazzling, and a muted brass fanfare punctuates the movement from time to time.

The third movement finale combines melancholy wistfulness (in the Lento assai section) with rhythmic exhilaration and virtuosity in the fast sections. The movement is a quest for its theme, which makes the initial Allegro sound fragmentary and restless, with contributions from the piccolo and trumpet that help to form a melodic core. But this is not to be reached until after a lengthy return to the slower tempo, when the cellos press the claim of something close to the Dies irae tune.

The Allegro returns for an exuberant mélange of plainchants for the full orchestra. With so much of the finale devoted to gloomy Russian introspection, not remotely suggestive of dance, the whole work comes nearer to being the Fourth Symphony he never wrote, slow movement and finale being persuasively combined.

—Hugh Macdonald © 2014

Blossom Music Festival

About the Music

At a Glance Rachmaninoff completed his Symphonic Dances on October 29, 1940. The first performance was given by the work’s dedicatees, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, on January 3, 1941.

Symphonic Dances runs about 35 minutes.

Rachmaninoff scored it for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, english horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, alto saxophone, 2 bassoons, contra-bassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (triangle, tambourine, bass drum, side drum, cymbals, tam-tam, glockenspiel, xylophone, bells), piano, harp, and strings.

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EXPERIENCE MORE BLOSSOM! See a full listing of 2014 Blossom Music Festival concerts on pages 36-37 of the Festival Book.

August 9 Saturday

The Magic of Mozart shines forth in this program of three works by Mozart himself, plus an homage to him by Tchaikovsky. Enjoy the master’s delightful tunes, his innovative sense of balance and form. Delight in the perfection of music created for listening and show. Including the popular Eine kleine Nachtmusik [“A Little Night-Music”] and the “Linz” Symphony No. 36.

WOLFGANG’S MAS TE RFUL MU SIC

August 16 Saturday

Yo-Yo Ma most celebrated musicians comes to Blossom for one night only.

Experience Yo-Yo Ma’s gifted artistry in Edward Elgar’s great Cello Concerto, filled with majestic melody and longing, mixed with soul-stirring passion and gripping drama. Blossom favorite Jahja Ling leads this special evening.

ONE OF THE WORLD’S

August 23 Saturday

Carmina Burana Experience one of the most popular masterpieces of the 20th century in Carl Orff ’s compelling tale for chorus, orchestra, and soloists. Infused with spirited rhythms, catchy melodies, and songs of love, lust, and drink — amidst the recurring change of seasons and the never-ending wheels of fortune and fate. With the Blossom Festival Chorus.

O FOR TUNA!