2014 Blossom Music Festival July 20

2O14

BLOSSOM MUSIC FESTIVAL S

U

M

M

E

R

H

O

M

E

O

F

T H E C L E V E L A N D O R C H E ST R A

sunday July 20 Cleveland Foundation Day at Blossom

MOZART AND SHOSTAKOVICH The Cleveland Orchestra Stanisław Skrowaczewski, conductor Francesco Piemontesi, piano

T H E C L E V E L A N D O R C H E S T R A F R A N Z

W E L S E R - M Ö ST M U S I C

D I R E C T O R

Welcome!

Welcome to Cleveland Foundation Day at Blossom! Many in the audience this evening are here through the generosity of the Cleveland Foundation, which, as part of its year-long Centennial celebrations, has enabled thousands of Northeast Ohioans to enjoy this evening’s performance for free on the Lawn.

We are honored to take part in celebrating the 100th anniversary of an organization so committed to the strength and vitality of our community.

On behalf of everyone at The Cleveland Orchestra, I want to extend special thanks to the Cleveland Foundation for making tonight’s concert here at Blossom part of its centennial gifts to the community. Each month in 2014, the Foundation is highlighting exciting local institutions, granting free admissions to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Great Lakes Science Center, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, Cleveland International Film Festival, and the wonderful collection of museums that surround the Orchestra’s winter home at Severance Hall — with announcements of more community gifts yet to come. We are pleased to be counted among these great Northeast Ohio organizations, who make our region a truly great place to live.

For a century, the Cleveland Foundation has supported the arts as essential to the health and strength of our region. The Foundation has long supported the Orchestra’s efforts to engage our entire community — through programming innovations, neighborhood residencies, community concerts, and far-reaching music education programs . . . by welcoming young people to concerts at Severance Hall and Blossom . . . by collaborating with other supporters of the arts, including Kent State University, with whom we share a nearly 50-year partnership through the Kent/Blossom Music Festival professional training program . . . and by serving Summit and Stark Counties through our wonderful summer home here at Blossom. Working with the Orchestra and other arts organizations in our region, the Cleveland Foundation is ensuring that our vital arts community continues to grow and thrive — enhancing the quality of life for all of us who call Northeast Ohio and surrounding communities our home.

Thank you again for joining us this evening. Whether this is your rst time attending a Cleveland Orchestra concert, your rst experience at Blossom, or being here is a well-loved annual tradition, welcome. And thank you for making music at Blossom part of your summer.

Gary Hanson Executive Director The Cleveland Orchestra

2

Welcome

The Cleveland Orchestra

2O14

BLOSSOM MUSIC FESTIVAL

Sunday evening, July 20, 2014, at 7:00 p.m.

THE CLEVEL AND ORCHESTRA S TA N I S Ł AW S K ROWAC Z E W S K I , conductor

CARL MARIA VON WEBER

Overture to Der Freischütz

WOLFGANG AMADÈ MOZART

Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-at major, K595

(1786-1826)

(1756-1791)

1. Allegro 2. Larghetto 3. Allegreo FRANCESCO PIEMONTESI, piano

INTERMISSION DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)

Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Opus 47 1.

2.

3.

4.

Moderato Allegretto Largo Allegro non troppo

Today is Cleveland Foundation Day at Blossom in grateful recognition for the Foundation’s centennial gift to the community, making thousands of Lawn tickets free for this evening’s performance.

This concert is sponsored by Steinway Piano Gallery Cleveland.

Francesco Piemontesi’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. Brett.

This concert is dedicated to Paul and Suzanne Westlake 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 20

3

Skrowaczewski returns to Cleveland Celebrations of his 90th birthday season conclude with concert at Blossom, performing Shostakovich’s FiŌh Symphony again 55 years aŌer his debut here

by FREDERICK HARRIS JR. I T I S A S T O R Y almost impossible to imagine in today’s world of professional

orchestras — a relatively unknown conductor makes his American debut with one of the world’s most respected orchestras, earns a return engagement that is widely praised, and soon thereafter is appointed music director of a major American orchestra, having never yet conducted that ensemble.

George Szell set Stanisław Skrowaczewski’s life-changing path in motion in 1957. Among the 20th century’s greatest conductors, Szell was leading The Cleveland Orchestra on its rst European tour when he met the young Polish conductor-composer.

Keenly aware that Skrowaczewski had recently won the International Rome Prize for conducting, Szell said, “You have to come to conduct your Symphony for Strings with The Cleveland Orchestra!” A shocked Skrowaczewski found himself in Cleveland in 1958 making his American debut with Szell’s venerated orchestra. The program included the U.S. premiere of Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Upon the success of his debut, Skrowaczewski was re-invited for a two-week engagement the following season (concluding with a program that featured his own Symphony for Strings).

“Polish Conductor Electries Severance Hall,” trumpeted the headline of the Cleveland Plain Dealer review from an atypical placement on the newspaper’s front page following Skrowaczewski’s 1959 Cleveland Orchestra engagement. Unknown to Skrowaczewski, members of a search committee from the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra were in the Cleveland audience that December evening. They also attended his other concerts on his American tour in three other cities where he guest conducted the orchestras of Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and New York.

At the end of the tour, he was offered the position of music director of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (today’s Minnesota Orchestra). Skrowaczewski accepted and became the rst conductor from the Iron Curtain to lead a major American orchestra.

He stayed for nineteen years — and he has maintained a continuous professional rela-

4

Skrowaczewski Returns

The Cleveland Orchestra

Conducting The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom, circa 1970 . . .

tionship with Minnesota, as conductor laureate, ever since. It is the longest such ongoing relationship (54 years) in the annals of major American orchestras.

Between 1958 and 1982 Skrowaczewski guest conducted The Cleveland Orchestra to critical acclaim on many occasions, including programs during a monthlong concert tour to Hawaii, New Zealand, and Australia in 1973.

It is tting that Skrowaczewski’s July 20, 2014, Blossom Music Festival concert with The Cleveland Orchestra concludes with the Fifth Symphony of Shostakovich, a work he performed in his American debut concerts with the Orchestra in 1958.

Maestro Skrowaczewski gave the Paris premiere of this same symphony in 1948.

Shostakovich himself praised a performance of the Fifth Symphony conducted by Skrowaczewski that the famed Russian composer heard in the mid-1950s in Warsaw.

Frederick Harris Jr. is director of wind and jazz ensembles at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

His book, Seeking the Infi nite: The Musical Life of Stanisław Skrowaczewski, is available for purchase at the Bandwagon Gift Shop at the top of the hill.

ST E I N WAY PI A NO GALLE RY CLEVEL AND

Visit our new and used piano showrooms, church organ display, and recital hall at our new location at Route 8 and the Ohio Turnpike I-80.

STEINWAY & SONS is proud to be the chosen partner of The Cleveland Orchestra.

334 EAST HINES HILL ROAD  BOSTON HEIGHTS, OHIO 44236 800 3560437 www.steinway-ohio.com

Blossom Festival 2014

Skrowaczewski Returns

5

Stanisław Skrowaczewski For nearly seven decades, Stanisław Skrowaczewski has worked as both a conductor and composer. At age 36, he became the first conductor from behind the Iron Curtain appointed music director of a major American orchestra, leading the Minneapolis Symphony (today called the Minnesota Orchestra) for 19 years (1960-79).

Mr. Skrowaczewski went on to become principal conductor (1984-1991) of the Hallé Orchestra, the oldest professional symphonic ensemble in the United Kingdom, and of Japan’s Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra (2007-10).

Throughout his career, he has been in demand as a guest conductor, leading nearly every major orchestra in the world, including those of Berlin, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, London, New York, Philadelphia, and Vienna. He made his United States debut with The Cleveland Orchestra in 1958 in a program that featured Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony.

Although his life has centered on conducting, Mr. Skrowaczewski believes his soul is very much that of a composer — proudly continuing a duality of career in the tradition of Mendelssohn, Wagner, and Mahler. Today at age 90, he stands alone as the oldest living musician leading the world’s foremost orchestras while still active and successful as a composer.

Born in 1923 in Lwów, Poland, Stanisław Skrowaczewski began piano and violin studies at the age of four, composed his first symphonic work at seven, gave his first public piano recital at eleven, and two years later played and conducted Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. Surviving three occupations of his home city during World War II, Mr. Skrowaczewski spent the immediate post-war years in Paris studying with Nadia Boulanger. Over the next decade, he became an active composer of orchestral, chamber, and film music. Decades later, his Concerto for Orchestra (1985) and Passacaglia Immaginaria (1995) were both nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He recently wrote a chamber work for cellist Lynn Harrell, which was premiered at the composer’s own 90th birthday celebration held at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. He is currently at work on a requiem for orchestra and chorus.

Mr. Skrowaczewski’s extensive discography includes his complete recordings of Bruckner’s symphonies with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, which were widely acclaimed and won the 2002 Cannes Classical Award for orchestral works of the 18th and 19th centuries. OehmsClassics recently released Stanisław Skrowaczewski: The Complete OehmsClassics Recordings, 90th Birthday Collection. This 28-CD box set includes the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Schumann, both Chopin piano concertos, and music of Bartók, Berlioz, and Skrowaczewski.

A comprehensive biography was published in 2011, titled Seeking the Infinite: The Musical Life of Stanisław Skrowaczewski, by Frederick Harris Jr.

6

Conductor

The Cleveland Orchestra

Overture to Der Freischütz composed 1820

by

Carl Maria von

WEBER

born November 18, 1786 Eutin, near Lübeck died June 5, 1826 London

I T W A S W I T H Weber’s Der Freischütz that serious opera really came of age in the German-speaking countries. Mozart’s two German masterpieces (The Abduction from the Seraglio and The Magic Flute) were largely carried by their comic elements, even though both, and The Magic Flute in particular, have their moments of seriousness and grandeur. But the demon that appears in the famous Wolf ’s Glen scene of Freischütz had absolutely no precedent on the musical stage — and neither did the sound of German folk music that appears in some of the opera’s choruses and other lighter numbers.

The opera’s protagonist is a young hunter named Max, a Freischütz or “free-shooter” who enters a shooting contest he cannot afford to lose if he wants to win the hand of Agathe, the daughter of the head ranger. Max resorts to black magic to achieve his goal, but the enchanted bullet (the Freikugel or “free bullet”) he fires comes dangerously close to killing Agathe, and Max himself only narrowly escapes losing his soul to the devil.

Only through the intervention of a saintly Hermit are things set straight at the end of the opera. Despite its naïveté, this plot, which originally came from a collection of ghost stories, gave Weber the opportunity to explore emotional extremes in great depth, and his work ushered in the Romantic era in the history of opera.

The spirited overture is filled with musical images of the forest (including four hunting horns) and with Max’s dramatic confrontation with the devil. The redeeming broad melody comes from Agathe’s great aria in which she hopes and prays that all should end well.

—Peter Laki Copyright © Musical Arts Association

At a Glance Weber composed his opera Der Freischütz (meaning “The Free Shooter”) between 1817 and 1820. He wrote the overture between February and mid-May of 1820.

The overture was premiered in a concert in Copenhagen in October 1820. The first performance of the entire opera was given on June 18, 1821, in Berlin.

This overture runs about 10 minutes in performance. Weber scored it for 2 flutes,

Blossom Festival 2014

About the Music

2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings.

The Overture to Der Freischütz was one of the first pieces that The Cleveland Orchestra ever played. It was presented — as the “Overture to The Magic Huntsman” — as the first piece of the Orchestra’s second public concert, on December 22, 1918, conducted by music director Nikolai Sokoloff.

7

Piano Concerto in B-at major, No. 27, K595 composed 1791

by

Wolfgang Amadè

MOZART born January 27, 1756 Salzburg died December 5, 1791 Vienna

8

T H E H I S T O R Y O F Mozart’s last piano concerto begins more than a decade before it was actually written — and shows the kind of circuitous way things can happen in life.

Writing from his Salzburg home to his wife and son in Paris, Wolfgang’s father, Leopold Mozart, added the following postscript to a letter dated June 29, 1778: “Mme Duschek has sent me a letter of introduction to a certain virtuoso on the clarinet, M. Joseph Beer, who is in the service of the Prince de Lambesc, Chief Equerry to the King of France. Tell me whether I am to send it to you. Try to see M. Beer.”

The 22-year-old Wolfgang, however, was not exactly eager to follow his father’s advice. He wrote back on July 9: “As for the letter of recommendation to Herr Beer. I don’t think it is necessary to send it to me; so far I have not made his acquaintance; I only know that he is an excellent clarinet player, but in other respects a dissolute sort of fellow. I really do not like to associate with such people, as it does one no credit; and, frankly, I should not like to give him a letter of recommendation — indeed I should feel positively ashamed to do so — and a great many people do not know him at all.

Little did Mozart know that his path and Beer’s would cross again 13 years later, and that he would owe his last public appearance as a pianist to Beer’s invitation. (Had the clarinetist mended his ways in the meantime? We don’t know.)

Beer left Paris in 1779 and, after a period of concert tours all over Europe, he entered the service of Catherine the Great of Russia. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians calls him “the earliest clarinet virtuoso of importance,” and credits him with adding the instrument’s A-flat/E-flat key.

Curiously enough, there were two clarinetists named Joseph Beer, both active at the end of the 18th century. The lack of consistency in spellings (Josef/Joseph, Beer/Bär/Bähr) only serves to muddle the issue further; and, in fact, the two musicians have frequently been confused. Yet there is no doubt that the artist whom Mozart declined to meet in Paris was the same person with whom he ended up collaborating in the last year of his life. (The second Beer, unrelated to the first, was a much younger man, born in 1770, the same year as Beethoven, with whom Beethoven was closely associated in the early 1800s.)

About the Music

2014 Blossom Festival

On March 12, 1791, the Wiener Zeitung newspaper published the following report on the Beer-Mozart evening: “Herr Bähr, Chamber Musician in actual service to H. Imperial Russian Majesty, held a grand musical concert on 4 March in the hall at Herr Jahn’s, and won the unanimous approbation of an audience consisting for the most part of connoisseurs, by his extraordinary skill on the clarinet — Herr Kapellmeister Mozart played a Concerto on the fortepiano, and everyone admired his art, in composition as well as in performance, while Madame Lange also completed the perfection of the proceedings with some arias.”

Madame Lange was, in fact, none other than the former Aloysia Weber, Mozart’s youthful love and later his sister-in-law, who played many of Mozart’s operatic heroines. The concert may have been a success, but it was a far cry from what Mozart had known in the years 1783-86, when he had his own subscription series in Vienna and didn’t need an invitation from another musician who was the main event.

The late British musicologist Alan Tyson, an expert on manuscripts, thought that Mozart may have first begun writing this concerto in B-flat major as early as 1788, perhaps planning to present it at one of those subscription concerts called “academies.” But because the plans fell through, the concerto was shelved. The incentive to finish the work only came courtesy of Beer; it was, finally, on January 5, 1791, that Mozart entered it in the catalog he kept of his own compositions.

It is easy to sentimentalize the fact that this is Mozart’s last piano concerto and see it as a valedictory piece. But Mozart was in good health at the beginning of 1791, working hard at improving his fortunes; there were no signs that he would be dead before the year was out. Between March and his death on December 5, he would write two operas, another concerto (for clarinet, though not for Beer), a string quintet, and numerous smaller works, not to mention a considerable porA later engraving based on a favorite Mozart family portrait painted in 1780-81.

Wolfgang and his sister, Nannerl, are sitting at the fortepiano, father Leopold stands with his violin, and mother Anna (who died in 1778) is represented in the portrait on the wall.

The Cleveland Orchestra

About the Music

9

At a Glance Mozart began this concerto in B-flat major, which was to remain his last piano concerto, in 1788. He did not complete it until January 5, 1791. He performed the piece as soloist at its premiere on March 4 of that year, at a concert of clarinetist Joseph Beer.

This concerto runs about 30 minutes in performance.

Mozart scored it for solo piano, flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, and strings.

The Cleveland Orchestra first presented Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27 in April 1948, under George Szell’s direction with Robert Casadesus as soloist. It has been performed quite frequently by the Orchestra since that time, by some of the world’s great pianists, including Clifford Curzon, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Radu Lupu, and Mitsuko Uchida.

tion of the Requiem. The concerto is certainly an extraordinary piece of music, but it is definitely not a swan song.

The opening theme of the first movement is a close relative of the Sonata for Piano and Violin (K378) written in the same key of B-flat major back in 1779. In fact, all three movements of this sonata (in which the piano plays an almost concerto-like virtuoso role) seem to be mirrored in the concerto. Compare, for instance, the two E-flat major melodies, in common time, of the respective second movements and the happy themes of the two finales. The earlier model is, of course, greatly expanded upon, especially in the harmonic vocabulary of the later work, which includes numerous bold modulations into distant keys and frequent forays into the darker minor mode, giving the music a distinct proto-Romantic character. One orchestral motif, occurring at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the first movement, is strongly reminiscent of the D-minor concerto (No. 20) of 1785.

The second-movement Larghetto is an epitome of “noble simplicity and quiet greatness,” to quote the influential definition of classicism by the 18th-century scholar Johann Joachim Winckelmann. A peaceful theme on the piano, a more passionate response from the orchestra, a middle section whose clearly articulated melody seems to speak as if in words, a recapitulation of the first melody, and a brief coda — that is all; and yet the effect is magical.

The third-movement Rondo shares its main theme with “Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling” (“Longing for Spring”), a song Mozart wrote shortly after completing the concerto (the words begin “Come, dear May, and make the trees green again . . . ”).

Accordingly, the entire movement makes us feel the warm sunshine of spring.

This last piano concerto is one of the few for which original solo cadenzas by Mozart exist. The composer wrote three separate cadenzas for this work, one for the first movement and two for the last (to be inserted at different points of the rondo). Each of these cadenzas contains allusions to the thematic material of their respective movements. Besides the virtuoso fireworks one may well expect, there are plenty of harmonic surprises and other unique touches that tell us a great deal about Mozart the improviser.

—Peter Laki Copyright © Musical Arts Association

10

About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

Francesco Piemontesi Since winning the 2007 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, Swiss-Italian pianist Francesco Piemontesi has appeared in recitals and concerts around the world.

He is making his Cleveland Orchestra debut with this evening’s concert.

Born in Locarno, Switzerland, in 1983, Francesco Piemontesi studied with Arie Vardi before working with Alfred Brendel, Cécile Ousset, and Alexis Weissenberg. He received a fellowship from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust and was a BBC New Generation Artist 2009-11. In 2012, he became artistic director of the Settimane Musicali di Ascona and received the best newcomer award from the BBC Music Magazine Awards.

As a concerto soloist, Francesco Piemontesi has appeared across Europe, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony, BBC Symphony, Berlin Radio Symphony, Camerata Salzburg, City of Birmingham Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Hallé Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, as well as with the Scottish, Vienna, and Zurich chamber orchestras and with the Israel Philharmonic.

He has also appeared at European festivals, including Aix-enProvence, BBC Proms, Edinburgh, and Lucerne, and with the Mostly Mozart in New York and in the Martha Argerich Project. Recent and upcoming engagements include concerts with the Helsinki Philharmonic, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Japan’s NHK Symphony, Northern Sinfonia, Ochestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, São Paolo Symphony, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

In recital, Mr. Piemontesi’s current schedule includes performances in Berlin, Brussels, London, Milan, New York City, Rome, Tokyo, Vienna, and Washington D.C. He has performed for the Chopin Piano Festival, London International Piano Series, Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Milan Società del Quartetto, and Turin Concerti dell’Unione Musicale. Francesco Piemontesi’s regular chamber music collaborators include Yuri Bashmet, Juliane Banse, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Clemens Hagen, Angelika Kirchschlager, Emmanuel Pahud, Heinrich Schiff, Antoine Tamestit, Jörg Widmann, and the Ebène Quartet.

Now an exclusive Naïve Classique recording artist, Francesco Piemontesi can also be heard on the avanti classic, Claves, and EMI labels. His discography includes works by Bach, Brahms, Dvořák, Handel, Liszt, and Schumann. His forthcoming recording projects feature Mozart’s sonatas and Debussy’s Préludes.

For additional information, visit www.francescopiemontesi.com.

Blossom Festival 2014

Soloist

11

Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Opus 47 composed 1937

frequently performed symphonies from the 20th century, Shostakovich’s Fift h has certainly achieved the status of a modern classic. Western audiences have long admired its great dramatic power and melodic richness.

But the history of the work and its deeply ambiguous Russian context reveal additional layers of meaning that, more than 70 years after the premiere, we are just about beginning to understand.

Shostakovich wrote the Fift h Symphony in what was certainly the most difficult year of his life. On January 28, 1936, an unsigned editorial in Pravda, the daily paper of the Communist Party, brutally attacked his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, denouncing it as “muddle instead of music.”

This condemnation resulted in a sharp decrease of performances of Shostakovich’s music in the ensuing months. What was worse, Shostakovich, whose first child was born in May 1936, lived in constant fear of further reprisals, denunciations, and . . . possibly even more dire acts.

The Communist Party, however, soon realized that the Soviet Union’s musical life couldn’t afford to lose its greatest young talent, and Shostakovich was granted a comeback. Less than a year after being forced to withdraw his Fourth Symphony, Shostakovich heard his Fift h premiered with resounding success in Leningrad on November 21, 1937. By that time, it should be noted, the “Great Terror” had begun, with political show trials resulting in numerous death sentences and mass deportations to the infamous labor camps. The Great Terror claimed the lives of some of the country’s greatest artists — such as the poet Osip Mandelshtam, the novelist Isaac Babel, and the theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold — but Shostakovich was miraculously spared.

Could it be that the qualities in the Fift h Symphony that are so admired today were the very same ones that saved the composer’s life at the time? Shostakovich clearly made a major effort to write a “classical” piece here, one that would be acceptable to the authorities and was as far removed from his avant-garde Fourth Symphony as possible. Whether that makes this new symphony into “A Soviet Artist’s Creative Response to Just Criticism,” as it was officially designated at the time, is

ONE OF THE MOST

by

Dmitri

SHOSTAKOVICH born September 25, 1906 St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) died August 9, 1975 Moscow

12

About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

another question.

The music is so profound and sincere as to transcend any kind of political expediency. The symphony was definitely a response to something, but not in the sense of a chastised schoolboy mending his ways. Rather, this is a great artist reacting to the cruelty and insanity of the times.

MEANING BEHIND THE MUSIC?

A lot of ink has been spilled over the “meaning” of this symphony. That Shostakovich had a special message to communicate becomes clear at the very beginning, when what would usually be a fast-paced “Allegro” first movement is replaced by a brooding opening that stays in a slow tempo for half its length. (In fact, Shostakovich opened several of his later symphonies — Nos. 6, 8, and 10 — in a similar way, making a habit of avoiding fast first movements.)

The third and fourth movements are equally telling, with what seems to be completely transparent memorial music followed by an ambiguously triumphant ending.

An official Soviet interpretation of the Fift h Symphony was propounded by the novelist Alexey Tolstoy (a relative of Leo Tolstoy, the author of War and Peace), who, even though he was a royal count, was loyal to the Soviet regime. In an influential article, Alexey Tolstoy viewed the symphony as a kind of musical Bildungsroman — a particular genre of writing that traces a person’s evolution in terms of education, experience, social consciousness, etc. This interpretation was echoed in an often-quoted article, published under Shostakovich’s name (but most probably not written by him): “The theme of my symphony is the formation of a personality. At the center of the work’s conception I envisioned just that: a man in all his suffering. . . .

The symphony’s finale resolves the tense and tragic moments of the preceding movements in a joyous, optimistic fashion.”

Yet critics — even Soviet ones — have had a hard time reconciling this with what they actually heard. The famous passage in Testimony, Shostakovich’s purported memoirs as edited (and possibly tampered with) by Solomon Volkov, reflects a radically different view: “It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,’ and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, ‘Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing’.”

As musicologist Richard Taruskin has noted, this interBlossom Festival 2014

About the Music

The Fifth Symphony was, without question, Shostakovich’s response to something.

But, with the Soviet government repremanding the composer for his earlier music, we should not think of a chastised schoolboy mending his ways. Rather, here is a great artist reacting to the cruelty and insanity of the times surrounding him.

13

Composer Dmitri Shostakovich talks with conductor Stanisław Skrowaczewski, circa 1960s.

14

pretation was actually shared by many people present at the premiere, who had serious doubts about the “optimism” of the finale. To some, this emotional ambiguity was a flaw in the work, while others saw it as a sign of a hidden message. On both sides of the political fence, it was felt that the finale did not entirely dispel the devastating effects of the third-movement Largo.

As a matter of fact, writing a triumphant finale has never been an easy thing to do, especially after Beethoven managed it so well in his Fift h Symphony. That masterpiece inspired later composers to devote their fifth symphonies to human tragedies on a large scale, as in the case of Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Sibelius. Yet none of the finales in those symphonies can be described as unambiguously “triumphant” as Beethoven’s, a fact that obviously cannot be blamed on politics alone. Rather, it has more to do with the pessimistic side of these composers’ Romantic mindsets and the increasing complexity of the world surrounding them. In Shostakovich’s case, at any rate, politics made an already difficult artistic issue even more complicated.

The “meaning” of the music can rarely be put into words, and under normal circumstances, there would be no need to even try. Shostakovich, however, wrote his Fift h Symphony in a context and with a level of public examination far from norAbout the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

mal. The Soviet government demanded triumphant optimism in all the arts, and failure to deliver it could result in severe criticism, or worse. Nevertheless, Shostakovich’s music resists simple black-and-white labels.

The generation that came of age after the Revolutions in Russia in 1917 (when Shostakovich was just 11 years old) knew no political reality other than Communism. Many Russians in the 1920s believed that the new world the Communists promised was sure to be an improvement over the Czarist regime.

Yet by the time of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s, many of the country’s best minds had become profoundly disillusioned, especially in view of the enormous sacrifices in human lives that the Party was trying to pass off as the price of progress. Even though they were facing a horrible situation, they saw no viable political alternatives for their country. Voicing even the slightest dissent with the regime could result in instant deportation, disappearance, or death. This irreconcilable conflict between hopes and realities was a fundamental fact of life. With its ambiguous ending, Shostakovich’s Fifth stands as a gripping monument to that conflict and all whose voices were silenced by force or threat.

THE MUSIC

A dramatic and ominous opening motif sets the stage for the Symphony’s first movement; a second theme, played by the violins in a high register, is warm and lyrical but at the same time eerie and distant. The music seems to hesitate for a long time, until the horns begin a march theme that leads to some intense motivic development and a speeding up of the tempo.

It is not a funeral march, but neither is it exactly triumphant.

Reminiscent perhaps of some of Gustav Mahler’s march melodies but even grimmer, its harmonies modulate freely from key to key, giving this march an oddly sarcastic character. At the climactic moment, the two earlier themes return. The dotted rhythms from the opening are even more powerful than before, but the second lyrical theme, now played by the flute and the horn to the soothing harmonies of the harp, has lost its previous edge and brings the movement to a peaceful, almost otherworldly close.

The brief second movement Scherzo brings some relief from the preceding drama. Its Ländler-like melodies again bear witness to Mahler’s influence, both in the Scherzo proper Blossom Festival 2014

About the Music

The symphony’s third movement was widely understood as a memorial for the Soviet Army Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who fell victim to Stalin’s “Great Terror” as Shostakovich was writing this symphony.

At the first performance, many people wept openly during this movement.

15

At a Glance Shostakovich wrote his Fifth Symphony in 1937. The first performance was given on November 21 of that year as part of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution, with the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky. The work was introduced to the U.S. by Artur Rodzinski and the NBC Symphony on April 9, 1938.

This symphony runs about 45 minutes in performance. Shostakovich scored it for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, small clarinet in E-flat, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, snare drum, tam-tam, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, and xylophone), 2 harps, piano, and strings.

The Cleveland Orchestra first presented Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony in October 1941 at Severance Hall concerts led by music director Artur Rodzinski. In December 1958, a weekend of performances were conducted by Stanisław Skrowaczewski, who was making his U.S. debut. In August 1985, Maxim Shostakovich, the composer’s son, led a performance as part of that summer’s Blossom Music Festival.

and the ensuing Trio section, whose theme is played by a solo violin and then by the flute.

The special tone color of the third movement is due to the absence of brass instruments, as well as to the fact that the violins are divided not into the usual two groups, but into three. This heart-wrenching music turns the march of the first movement into a lament, also incorporating a theme resembling a Russian Orthodox funeral chant. The tension gradually increases and finally erupts about two-thirds of the way through the movement. The opening melody then returns in a rendering that is much more intense than the first time. To the end, the music preserves the unmistakable character of a lament.

This movement, marked in the score as Largo (“extremely slow”), was widely understood as a memorial for the Soviet Army Marshal Mikhail Tuk hachevsky, who fell victim to the Great Terror at the very time Shostakovich was working on his symphony. (Tukhachevsky had been a benefactor and a personal friend of the composer’s.) At the first performance, many people wept openly during this movement, perhaps thinking of their own loved ones who had disappeared.

The last movement attempts to resolve the enormous tension that has built up in the course of the symphony by introducing a march tune that is much more light-hearted than a majority of the earlier themes. Yet after an exciting development, the music suddenly stops on a set of harsh fortissimo chords, and a slower, more introspective section begins with a haunting horn solo. Musicologist Richard Taruskin has shown that this section quotes from a song for voice and piano on a Pushkin poem (“Vozrozhdenie” or “Rebirth,” Opus 46, No.1), which Shostakovich had written just before the Fift h Symphony. The Pushkin poem intones: “Delusions vanish from my wearied soul, and visions arise within it of pure primeval days.” This quiet intermezzo ends abruptly with the entrance of timpani and snare drum, ushering in a recapitulation of the march tune, played at half its original tempo. Merely a shadow of its former self, the melody is elaborated contrapuntally until it suddenly alights on a bright D-major chord in full orchestral splendor — remaining unchanged for more than a minute to end the symphony.

—Peter Laki Copyright © Musical Arts Association

16

About the Music

Blossom Music Festival

M U S I C

D I R E C T O R

1 9 7 2 - 8 2

IN MEMORIAM

Lorin Maazel March 6, 1930 to July 13, 2014

The Cleveland Orchestra joins the world in mourning the death on July 13 of Lorin Maazel, who served as The Cleveland Orchestra’s fifth music director through a remarkable decade, 1972-82.

He was a musician of exceptional and early talents, who had first conducted the Orchestra in 1943, at age 13. Three decades later, he was chosen to be Cleveland’s music director. Through hundreds of concerts at home, during ten international tours, in radio broadcasts and on a series of acclaimed recordings, his leadership and imaginative programming and performances brought inspiration and joy to Cleveland Orchestra audiences around the world. His dynamic energy and acute insight brought fresh ideas to The Cleveland Orchestra’s performances and presentations, and as an institution serving the art of music, the entire Northeast Ohio community, and beyond. His importance in our history will be forever remembered. We extend condolences and sympathy to his wife, Dietlinde Turban Maazel, and family and friends.

The Cleveland Orchestra

Lorin Maazel: In Memoriam

17

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

THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA E CLEVELAND O30RCHESTRA A THE CLEVELAND ORCHE

News

18

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.

Orchestra News

The Cleveland Orchestra

HE CLEVELAND O30RCHESTRA RA THE CLEVELAND ORCHE

OrchestraNews

News

Welser-Möst leads special Vienna Philharmonic concert in Sarajevo to commemorate anniversary of World War I

Orchestra News

19

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.

THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA

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!