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BLOSSOM MUSIC FESTIVAL S
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saturday July 12
BEETHOVEN’S SEVENTH The Cleveland Orchestra Asher Fisch, conductor Isabelle Faust, violin
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thanks to the richness of Cleveland’s cultural heritage and the excellence of The Cleveland Orchestra, literally millions of men, women and children have experienced such a dawn… and it is unforgettable.
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BLOSSOM MUSIC FESTIVAL
Saturday evening, July 12, 2014, at 8:00 p.m.
THE CLEVEL AND ORCHESTRA A S H E R F I S C H , conductor
RICHARD WAGNER
Overture to The Flying Dutchman
FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Violin Concerto in E minor, Opus 64
(1813-1883)
(1809-1847)
1. Allegro molto appassionato — 2. Andante — 3. Allegretto ma non troppo — Allegro molto vivace ISABELLE FAUST, violin
INTERMISSION LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Opus 92 1. 2. 3. 4.
Poco sostenuto — Vivace Allegretto Presto Allegro con brio
This concert is sponsored by Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc., a Cleveland Orchestra Partner in Excellence. Isabelle Faust’s appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra is made possible by a gift to the Orchestra’s Guest Artist Fund from The Hershey Foundation. This concert is dedicated to Mr. and Mrs. Gerald A. Conway in recognition of their extraordinary generosity in support of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2013-14 Annual Fund. Media Partner: The Plain Dealer
Blossom Music Festival
Program: July 12
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Overture to The Flying Dutchman composed 1841
by
Richard
WAGNER born May 22, 1813 Leipzig died February 13, 1883 Venice
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T H R O U G H O U T his early years as a composer and conductor, Richard Wagner’s life was hectic but not unusual. He was but one of many talented musicians trying to find his share of fame and fortune. Like so many others’, his financial state was often precarious. His extravagant expenditures were often quite at odds with the small incomes he managed to obtain each year. His marriage, in 1836, to the actress Minna Planer was illsuited from the start. Their travails together were augmented by Richard’s erratic jealousy (not without some foundation in her flirting ways) and his nearly annual shifting from one provincial conducting appointment to another. With a brief and financially draining tenure as music director for the theater at Riga in Russia coming to an end, Wagner decided to escape (quite literally) his debt and gamble his future on Paris, the cultural capital of Europe. He and Minna secretly slipped across the border to Prussia (his passport had been impounded by creditors) and set sail from Pillau on July 19, 1839, as the only passengers (along with their huge Newfoundland dog named Robber) on a small German cargo ship bound for England across the Baltic and North Seas. What should have been an eight-day fair-weather crossing lasted over four weeks in incident after onslaught of bad weather and foul seas. Yet the extended storm-tossed voyage, complete with sheltering nights of unscheduled refuge along Norway’s southern coast, was not without profit for Wagner’s fertile mind. Wagner later described how the entire frightful experience etched in his mind an operatic scheme on the tale of the “Flying Dutchman.” The legend was well-known along coastal areas of Northern Europe and had already been fictionalized in a variety of publications, including Heinrich Heine’s Memoirs of Herr von Schnabelewopski of 1834. After a brief stay in London, the Wagners travelled on to Paris, where they stayed for almost three years, trying to change Richard’s fortune by securing a commission to write an opera. During this time, without any promises for production, he completed two operas: Rienzi and then The Flying Dutchman. While in Paris, Wagner did make passing acquaintance with several of the day’s most famous composers and musical personalities, including Berlioz, Liszt, and Meyerbeer. With About the Music
The Cleveland Orchestra
his spending as usual out-of-sync with income, he also spent several weeks in debtors’ prison. While writing The Flying Dutchman, he also later claimed to have sold the very idea of writing an opera on this seafaring story to the Paris Opéra. The Opéra, however, utilized a French team to do the actual writing; the resulting opera opened to lackluster reviews in 1842 and promptly sank beneath the waves of history. Wagner completed his own Flying Dutchman in late 1841, writing the overture last as a musical overview of ideas and themes. And then, suddenly, his vision of himself began to come true. The opera house in Dresden wanted to stage Rienzi, and Wagner happily slipped away from “the cursed cultural capital of Europe” to oversee the production. The popular success of Rienzi, an overcharged story of Italian treachery and betrayal, helped convince the Dresden Opera to ask for Wagner’s next opera. Little did they know that as he wrote The Flying Dutchman Wagner’s ideas of what opera music should be had begun to diverge from the accepted models of 19th-century opera. The arias and duets and choruses of the conventionally formed Rienzi were disappearing in Wagner’s mind toward one long, seamless flow of dramatic music. Wagner originally conceived and wrote The Flying Dutchman in one long act, without intermissions. To help elicit a production, he later divided it up with “convenient” act breaks, stretching some of the material and including traditional musical divisions — resulting in what at least appeared to be arias and chorus numbers, but which in reality sometimes flowed together without giving audiences their accustomed breaks to applaud and talk between numbers. Thus, while early audiences found the power of this new music compelling or at least daring, they also fussed about how far from normal Wagner the composer was drifting. His gradual success in winning over critics and audiences as his art and craft matured would become one of the great success stories of the 19th century — and one of music history’s biggest turns toward a new direction. The Flying Dutchman marks the initial swing, with the boldness of its music evident from the opening measures.
The Overture to Wagner’s Flying Dutchman opens with “hollow” fifths in the strings, a chord waiting for its identity in either minor or major — just as the character of the Dutchman exists without his soul, waiting between life and death.
THE MUSIC
The Overture to The Flying Dutchman opens with “hollow” fift hs in the strings, a chord waiting for its identity in ei-
Blossom Festival 2014
About the Music
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At a Glance Wagner wrote the libretto and composed the music for his opera The Flying Dutchman (“Der fliegender Holländer”) between May and November 1841. The work’s first performance was given at the Dresden Opera on January 2, 1843, under Wagner’s direction. This overture runs about 10 minutes in performance. Wagner scored it for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, english horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, harp, and strings. The Cleveland Orchestra first performed the Overture to The Flying Dutchman in March 1921, conducted by Nikolai Sokoloff. The Orchestra played it quite frequently over the next fifty years — most notably at a special concert in February 1924 conducted by the composer’s son, Siegfried Wagner, as part of an American conducting tour to raise funds toward reopening his father’s Bayreuth Festspielhaus. The Orchestra’s most recent performance of this overture was at Blossom in 2007.
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ther minor or major — just as the character of the Dutchman exists without his soul, waiting between life and death. In the midst of this, we hear the motif of the Dutchman himself, cursed along with his crew to sail the seas forever, dead by day and alive at night, and allowed to come ashore just once every seven years in search of a faithful woman who can redeem him by being true in love, to the point of dying for him. This opening music, like a storm threatening on the horizon, soon quiets for the soothing theme of Senta’s second-act ballad. Here is the central musical theme of the opera — and the overture — representing the true woman’s love (which, if we read the ballad’s words, is a bit maniacal and over-the-top, but opera is nothing if not overcharged with emotion and devotion). The remainder of the overture sets forth, in a straightforward manner, much of the action of the opera. The storm suddenly overwhelms us with sheets of rain and dashing waves — and the Dutchman’s ship sails aggressively into view. The ship, however, seems strangely unaffected by the violent storm surrounding it, and we soon hear the jaunty chanting melody of the sailors onboard. (Wagner claimed that he devised this tune from a chant actually sung by the sailors on his ship crossing the windswept North Sea.) The Dutchman’s musical theme is then intermingled with the rising storm, over which we can still hear brief echoes of the sailors’ chant as well as other motifs from the opera. Following a rather conventional passage sequencing up the scale (more like Italian bel canto opera, which Wagner loved, than the seamless composer he later became), the storm is calmed by Senta’s ballad, this time capped with the opera’s redemption motif. Shortly thereafter we hear Senta’s running leap into the sea — true even to her death — and the mariner’s soul is saved in one of Wagner’s eloquent trademark phrases, arching gracefully to radiant resolution on a glowing D-major chord. —Eric Sellen © 2014 Eric Sellen currently serves as The Cleveland Orchestra’s program book editor.
About the Music
The Cleveland Orchestra
Violin Concerto in E minor, Opus 64 composed 1838-44
by
Felix
MENDELSSOHN born February 3, 1809 Hamburg died November 4, 1847 Leipzig
The Cleveland Orchestra
O N E O F T H E C O R N E R S T O N E S of the concerto repertoire, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto is one of the most beloved symphonic works ever written. At age 35, Mendelssohn could already look back on an international career of a decade and a half. He had been able to turn his fortunate personal situation to advantage and fully enjoy the benefits of a privileged family background (his father was a wealthy banker who was able to provide him with the best education and even put an orchestra at his disposal to play his early works). Since 1837, Mendelssohn was himself happily married and was, by 1844, the father of four. His first name, Felix (Latin for “happy”), appeared to be a good omen for his life. (No one could then have predicted Mendelssohn’s tragic death only three years later.) This concerto was a gift of friendship to a musician particularly close to Mendelssohn’s heart. Mendelssohn had known Ferdinand David (1810-1873) since boyhood, and shortly after he took over the directorship of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, he invited the violinist to be his concertmaster. (David was to hold this position for 37 years, serving long after Mendelssohn’s death.) David shared with Mendelssohn many of the administrative duties at the orchestra. They also frequently performed chamber music together, with Mendelssohn at the piano. Mendelssohn’s fondness for David can be seen from this passage from a letter written to the violinist: “I realize that there are not many musicians who pursue such a straight road in art undeviatingly as you do, or in whose active course I could feel the same intense delight that I do in yours.” This was written in 1838, the year Mendelssohn made the first sketches for the Violin Concerto. Other commitments, however, prevented him from completing the work until 1844; the concerto remained one of his last symphonic compositions (followed only by the oratorio Elijah). The concerto seems perfectly to reflect the composer’s sunny disposition. In this work, as elsewhere in Mendelssohn’s music, Romantic passion is always tempered by Classical restraint, and tender lyrical feelings are balanced by light, even humorous moments. Violinistic virtuosity goes hand in hand with a depth of expression achieved only by the greatest masters. About the Music
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At a Glance Mendelssohn made the first sketches for his Violin Concerto in 1838, but the actual composition took place largely in 1844. It was first performed on March 13, 1845, at a concert of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, with Ferdinand David as soloist and conducted by Niels Gade. This concerto runs about 30 minutes in performance. Mendelssohn scored it for an orchestra of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings, plus the solo violin. The work’s three movements are played without pause. The Cleveland Orchestra first performed Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in November 1919, under Nikolai Sokoloff and with violinist Toscha Seidel. Since that time, it has been presented regularly, played by some of the most well-known soloists of the day, including Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Midori, Sarah Chang, and Christian Tetzlaff, as well as by several of the Orchestra’s concertmasters.
One of Mendelssohn’s most innovative touches comes at the very beginning of the concerto, where he dispensed with the usual orchestral exposition and introduced the solo instrument, with a soaring melody, immediately at the outset. The violin remains the center of attention throughout the entire work, with only a few tutti sections where the soloist doesn’t play. In another striking departure from the norms, the movements of the concerto are played without pause. It wasn’t the only time Mendelssohn had the movements of his larger works played with no breaks (he had done the same earlier, in the “Scottish” Symphony), but in the concerto he inserted short connecting passages between the movements. After the first movement, a single note held by a solo bassoon provides a link to the beautiful Andante, and a brief melodic passage serves as a bridge between the second and third movements. The speed of this latter passage, scored for solo violin and string orchestra, is halfway between the preceding slow and subsequent fast tempos. The various moods and sentiments — those of the passionate first, the lyrical second and the graceful third movements — all flow directly from one another, instead of presenting them as separate entities. The written-out cadenza of the first movement (which may be, at least in part, by David), is also more strongly integrated into the movement than was the case in earlier concertos. Mendelssohn moved it from its traditional place at the end of the movement to the middle, making it grow organically out of the development section and resolve just as naturally in the recapitulation. Nor does the cadenza end when the orchestra re-enters; it continues while the flute, the oboe, and the first violins play the main theme — another example of the kind of seamless transition between sections that was so important to Mendelssohn. The charge, often repeated in the past, that Mendelssohn was a conservative whose music contains no significant innovations, rests on a serious misconception. —Peter Laki
Copyright © Musical Arts Association
Peter Laki, a visiting associate professor at Bard College, is a musicologist and frequent lecturer on classical music.
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About the Music
2014 Blossom Festival
Isabelle Faust German violinist Isabelle Faust is known for her artistry, technique, and interpretive instincts. She is making her Cleveland Orchestra debut with this evening’s concert. Ms. Faust performs regularly across Europe and in North America. Her concerto appearances have included engagements with the orchestras of Berlin, Boston, Cologne, Hannover, Hamburg, London, Munich, Netherlands, Paris, and Stuttgart, with the Salzburg Camerata and Mozarteum Orchestra, and with the various orchestras of the BBC throughout the United Kingdom. Isabelle Faust began violin lessons at age five, and as a teenager studied with Denes Zsigmondy and Christoph Poppen. In 1987 she won the International Leopold Mozart Competition of Augsberg. In 1990, the city of Rovigo awarded her its Premio Quadrivio Prize, and in 1993 she received first prize in the Paganini Competition of Genoa. She made her United States debut in 1995 with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Faust is keenly interested in historical technique and also an advocate of new music. She has given premiere performances of works by Werner Egk, Michael Jarrell, Thomas Larcher, Olivier Messiaen, and Jörg Widmann. She is a proponent of works by Morton Feldman, György Ligeti, Luigi Nono, and Giacinto Scelsi, as well as of forgotten and neglected pieces such as André Jolivet’s Violin Concerto. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Isabelle Faust has performed throughout Europe, Israel, Japan, and the United States, and at the festivals of Bad Kissingen, Berlin, Colmar, Delft, Lanaudière Canada, Lockenhaus, Lyon, Rheingau, Sarasota, Schleswig-Holstein, and Schwetzingen. Her musical partners include Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Bruno Canino, Bruno Giuranna, Clemens Hagen, Stephen Isserlis, Boris Pergamenschikov, and Joseph Silverstein. Also among Ms. Faust’s regular collaborators in performances and recordings is pianist Alexander Melnikov. Their Harmonia Mundi album of the complete Beethoven sonatas received the Echo Klassik Award, Gramophone Award, and a Grammy Award nomination. Isabelle Faust’s discography also includes works by Bach, Bartók, Dvořák, Haydn, Janáček, Schumann, and Szymanowski, which have received many nominations and prizes, including the Diapason d’Or, Diapason d’Or de l’Année, and the Japanese Record Academy Award. Isabelle Faust performs on the 1704 “Sleeping Beauty” Stradivarius violin, on loan to her from Germany’s L-Bank Baden-Württemberg. She currently serves as a violin professor at the Berlin University of the Arts.
Blossom Festival 2014
Soloist
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Symphony No. 7 in A major, Opus 92 composed 1812
remember the day I heard Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony for the first time. I was about 5 or 6 years old, and a recording with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony was being played on the radio. I was completely mesmerized by the performance, and when the fourth movement began, I jumped to my feet and started to dance. A dozen years later, I learned about Richard Wagner’s description of this symphony as the “apotheosis of the dance,” and although I wasn’t sure what an apotheosis was, I could certainly agree that dance was at the center of what this symphony was all about. Even later, I became acquainted with other attempts by 19th-century writers to capture the work’s essence — invoking political revolutions, military parades, masquerade balls, Bacchic orgies, and more. Finally, about 25 years after my first encounter with the symphony, I read Maynard Solomon’s excellent book on Beethoven, in which this musicologist-author shows how all these fanciful interpretations are really variations on a single theme, that of the “carnival or festival, which, from time immemorial, has temporarily lifted the burden of perpetual subjugation to the prevailing social and natural order by periodically suspending all customary privileges, norms, and imperatives.” In other words, generations of listeners have felt that Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony is a wild celebration of life and freedom. While the Ninth Symphony is a fierce struggle with fate that is won only when the “Ode to Joy” is intoned, from the start the Seventh radiates joy and happiness that not even the second movement — which has come to be called a funeral march — can seriously compromise. I C A N D I S T I N C T LY
by
Ludwig van
BEETHOVEN born December 16, 1770 Bonn died March 26, 1827 Vienna
THE MUSIC
The dance feelings associated with the work find their explanation in the fact that each of the four movements is based on a single rhythmic figure that is present almost without interruption. (Only the third movement has two such figures, one for the initial Scherzo section and one for the central Trio.) In the first movement, we see how the predominant rhythm gradually comes to life during the transition from the lengthy slow introduction to the fast tempo. Everyone who has ever heard rock music knows how
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About the Music
The Cleveland Orchestra
intoxicating the constant repetition of simple rhythmic patterns can be. That’s part of what Beethoven did here, but he did much more — against a backdrop of continually repeated dance rhythms, he created an endless diversity of melodic and harmonic events. There is a strong sense of cohesion as the melodies flow from one another with inimitable spontaneity. At the same time, harmony, melody, dynamics, and orchestration are all full of the most delightful surprises. It is somewhat like riding in a car at a constant (and rather high) speed while watching an ever-changing, beautiful landscape pass by. The first movement starts with the most extended slow introduction Beethoven ever wrote for a symphony. It presents and develops its own thematic material, linked to the main theme of the “Allegro” section in a passage consisting of multiple repeats of a single note — E — in the flute, oboe, and violins. Among the many unforgettable moments of this movement, I would single out two: the oboe solo at the beginning of the recapitulation (which has no counterpart in the exposition) and the irresistible, gradual crescendo at the end that culminates in a fortissimo (“extremely loud”) statement of the movement’s main rhythmic figure. The second-movement “Allegretto” in A minor was the section in the symphony that became the most popular from the day of the premiere — it was so successful, judged by audience applause and shouting, that it was repeated immediately at the first performance. The main rhythmic pattern of this movement was used in Austro-German church litanies of the 18th and 19th centuries. The same pattern is so frequent in the music of Franz Schubert that it is sometimes referred to as the “Schubert rhythm.” The “Allegretto” of Beethoven’s Seventh combines this rhythm with a melody of a rare expressive power. The rhythm persists in the bass even during the contrasting middle section in A major. We know this movement has a secret because of a passage in one of Beethoven’s conversation books (which contain remarks addressed to the deaf composer). The composer’s secretary, Anton Schindler, wrote: “We have to show all this in the complete edition, because nobody would be looking for these things.” The secret may have to do with the mysterious wind chord that opens and closes the movement (it is a so-called 6-4 chord, which normally is not allowed to stand by itself because it is so startling without chords that follow). However, because Blossom Festival 2014
About the Music
At a Glance Beethoven wrote his Seventh Symphony in 1812. He conducted the first performance on December 8, 1813, at a special concert at the University of Vienna. The Seventh Symphony was published in 1816 with a dedication to Count Moritz von Fries, a Viennese nobleman and longtime patron. This symphony runs about 35 minutes in performance. Beethoven scored it for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony crept into The Cleveland Orchestra’s repertoire. The second movement was played by itself in November 1919, at the “First Popular Concert” of the Orchestra’s second season. The first performance of the entire symphony at a Cleveland Orchestra subscription concert was not by the Orchestra itself, but by the La Scala Orchestra of Milan, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, on February 2, 1921, in the “New” Masonic Hall. The Cleveland Orchestra played the entire Symphony for the first time in April 1922 with music director Nikolai Sokoloff conducting. It has been played frequently on Orchestra concerts since that time.
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the conversation books did not record Beethoven’s replies, we may never know exactly what the secret was or even if it was in any way connected with that chord. The third-movement “Scherzo” is the only one of the symphony’s movements where the basic rhythmic patterns are grouped in an unpredictable, asymmetrical way. The joke (which is what the word Scherzo literally means) lies in the fact that the listener is never quite sure what will happen in the next moment. For some moments of respite, the movement’s middle Trio section returns to regular-length periods. In another innovative move, Beethoven expands the traditional Scherzo-Trio-Scherzo structure by repeating the Trio a second time, followed by a third appearance of the Scherzo. And then, near the end, ever joking, Beethoven leads us to believe that he is going to start the Trio over yet another time! But we are about to be doubly surprised: first when the by-now familiar Trio melody is suddenly transformed from major to minor; and second when, with five quick tutti strokes, the entire orchestra ends the movement abruptly, as if cut off in the middle. In the fourth-movement “Allegro con brio,” the exuberant feelings reach their peak as one glorious theme follows another over an unchanging rhythmic pulsation. The dance reaches an almost superhuman intensity (and that, incidentally, is the meaning of the Greek word “apotheosis,” literally, “becoming God-like”). This is a movement of which even Sir Donald Francis Tovey, the most celebrated British musical essayist of the first half of the 20th century, had to admit: “I can attempt nothing here by way of description.” We are fortunate that music can speak for itself. —Peter Laki Copyright © Musical Arts Association
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About the Music
The Cleveland Orchestra
Asher Fisch Earlier this year, Israeli conductor Asher Fisch became principal conductor and artistic advisor of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in Perth. He also continues as principal guest conductor of the Seattle Opera, where he conducted its quadrennial cycle of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung in 2013. He is making his Cleveland Orchestra debut with this evening’s concert. Now a seasoned conductor in both the operatic and symphonic worlds, Mr. Fisch began his career as Daniel Barenboim’s assistant and kapellmeister at the Berlin State Opera. He returns there regularly and this past season led performances of operas by Puccini, Richard Strauss, Verdi, and Wagner. He also served as music director of the New Israeli Opera 1998-2008, and the Vienna Volksoper 1995-2000. Since his United States debut with the Los Angeles Opera in 1995, Asher Fisch has appeared at the Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, and San Francisco Opera. He has conducted performances with the major German and Austrian opera houses, including those of Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, and Vienna, as well as at the Paris Opera, London’s Royal Opera House, and Teatro alla Scala. He maintains a strong relationship with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, where he led six productions this past season. He made his Australian debut in 2005, conducting Wagner’s Ring at the State Opera of South Australia; the production won ten Helpman Awards, Australia’s premier music awards, and a live recording was released to wide acclaim. Known in the concert hall for his command of German and Italian repertoire of the Romantic and post-Romantic eras — in particular Wagner, Brahms, Strauss, and Verdi — Asher Fisch is also an advocate for modern composers. including Avner Dorman. Highlights of recent engagements include performances at the Melbourne Festival and concerts with the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, National Orchestra of Belgium, and Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. As guest conductor, he has appeared with the orchestras of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, Saint Louis, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington, D.C., as well as those of Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, London, Munich, and the Orchestre National de France. Also an accomplished pianist, Mr. Fisch can be heard on his first solo album of Wagner piano transcriptions, released in 2012 by the Melba label. He often leads concertos from the piano, and also participates in chamber music and vocal recitals.
Blossom Festival 2014
Conductor
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THE CLEVELAND ORCH
OrchestraNews M.U.S.I.C.I.A.N S.A.L.U.T.E
THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA
The Musical Arts Association gratefully acknowledges the artistry and dedication of all the musicians of The Cleveland Orchestra. In addition to rehearsals and concerts throughout the year, many musicians donate performance time in support of community engagement, fundraising, education, and audience development activities. We are pleased to recognize these musicians, listed below, who have volunteered for such events and presentations during the 201213 and 2013-14 seasons. Mark Atherton Martha Baldwin Charles Bernard Katherine Bormann Lisa Boyko Charles Carleton John Clouser Hans Clebsch Kathleen Collins Patrick Connolly Ralph Curry Alan DeMattia Maximilian Dimoff Elayna Duitman Bryan Dumm Tanya Ell Kim Gomez David Alan Harrell Miho Hashizume Shachar Israel Joela Jones Richard King Alicia Koelz Stanley Konopka Mark Kosower Paul Kushious Massimo La Rosa Jung-Min Amy Lee Mary Lynch Thomas Mansbacher Takako Masame Eli Matthews Jesse McCormick Daniel McKelway
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Sonja Braaten Molloy Eliesha Nelson Chul-In Park Joanna Patterson Zakany Alexandra Preucil William Preucil Lynne Ramsey Jeffrey Rathbun Jeanne Preucil Rose Stephen Rose Frank Rosenwein Michael Sachs Marisela Sager Jonathan Sherwin Sae Shiragami Emma Shook Joshua Smith Saeran St. Christopher Barrick Stees Richard Stout Jack Sutte Kevin Switalski Brian Thornton Isabel Trautwein Lembi Veskimets Robert Walters Carolyn Gadiel Warner Stephen Warner Richard Weiss Beth Woodside Robert Woolfrey Paul Yancich Derek Zadinsky Jeffrey Zehngut
Donors make plans to endow Orchestra’s librarian chair The Cleveland Orchestra is pleased to announce the creation of the Joe and Marlene Toot Head Librarian Endowed Chair through a legacy gift to the Orchestra. “The Head Librarian is a critically essential member of the Orchestra — as integral to our musical success as any instrumentalist,” says Gary Hanson. “It is with deep gratitude that I thank business leader Joe Toot of Stark County and his wife Marlene for making such a generous commitment through their estate.” The current head librarian, Robert O’Brien, is the ninth in that position since the Orchestra’s founding in 1918. He has served as head librarian since 2008. In this role, O’Brien ensures that each musician has the right music on the right music stand at the right time for every rehearsal and concert. He makes all scores available to every musician for individual practice, and ensures that every part and each marking matches the conductor’s needs. He catalogs and maintains the Orchestra’s extensive collection of musical scores — those that are part of the Severance Hall music library and those rented for particular performances. He daily works with tempo markings and musical scores in multiple languages, from German to French, Italian to English, and more. The gift from Joe and Marlene Toot will support the funding of The Cleveland Orchestra’s Head Librarian position in perpetuity. Thousands of generous individuals have made a commitment to the Orchestra through outright endowment gifts or legacy plans, through the annual fund and special project support. To learn more about including the Orchestra in your estate plans, please contact Bridget Mundy at 216-231-8006.
Comings and goings
As a courtesy to the performers onstage and the entire audience, late-arriving patrons in the Pavilion cannot be seated until the first break in the musical program.
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Welser-Möst leads special Vienna Philharmonic concert in Sarajevo to commemorate anniversary of World War I
Orchestra News
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THE CLEVELAND ORCH
Blossom Festival 2014
Franz Welser-Möst led a commemorative concert of the Vienna Philharmonic in the atrium of Sarajevo’s rebuilt City Hall on June 28, 100 years after the assassinations of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie in that city began a series of events that resulted in the outbreak of World War I — and the start of a war-torn century for Sarajevo itself. A giant screen was erected to broadcast the concert for a crowd gathered outside on the opposite side of the Miljacka River. Broadcasters for Eurovision relayed the concert to more than 40 countries across Europe. “This is a very symbolic day in a very symbolic location,” said Clemens Hellsberg, the outgoing president of the Philharmonic. “We wanted it to be not a view back into history, but a view into the future, after the catastrophe of war.” In choosing the Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ as part of the concert, Welser-Möst said, “we wished to express the hope that war should never happen on the soil of Europe again.” Welser-Möst continued, saying that he and the Philharmonic saw themselves performing in this special concert a similar role of reconciliation that conductor Daniel Barenboim has sought with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, whose mixture of Israeli and Arab players also work to surmount the hatreds and divisions of the past.
THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA
Earlier this year, The Cleveland Orchestra announced a new group called The Circle, welcoming young professionals ages 21-40. The group is designed for those who share a love of music and an interest in supporting The Cleveland Orchestra in a new and dynamic way. The Circle provides members exclusive access to the Orchestra, with opportunities to meet musicians, and socialize at Severance Hall and at Blossom Music Festival events. Memberships include bi-monthly concert tickets along with opportunities to attend social gatherings to network with friends and cultural business leaders of Northeast Ohio. The objectives of The Circle are to increase engagement opportunities for young people ages 21-40 and to help develop future volunteer community leaders and arts advocates. The Circle was launched at a Cleveland Orchestra concert in January, and is continuing to grow. Plans for future events are posted on the orchestra’s website, including concerts, get-togethers, and more. Cost of membership in The Circle is $15 per month for one membership and $20 per month for two memberships and includes bi-monthly tickets. New members join for a minimum of six months. For additional information, visit clevelandorchestra.com or send an email to thecircle@clevelandorchestra.com.
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Cleveland Orchestra group for networking and socializing of dynamic young professionals continues to grow
EXPERIENCE MORE BLOSSOM! See a full listing of 2014 Blossom Music Festival concerts on pages 36-37of the Festival Book.
July 26 Saturday
Beethoven & Liszt This special concert features musical masterworks and more. Beginning at 7 p.m., the Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra plays pieces by Ravel and Wagner. At 8 p.m., The Cleveland Orchestra takes the stage with a Beethoven overture and Liszt’s fiery First Piano Concerto with soloist Stephen Hough. Then, both orchestras play Sibelius’s grand Second Symphony.
AN E VE NING OF MAS TE RPIEC E S .
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, 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 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 spirirted 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!