2014 Blossom Music Festival July 26

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saturday July 26 Kent /Blossom Side-by-Side

BEETHOVEN, LISZT, & SIBELIUS The Cleveland Orchestra John Storg책rds, conductor Stephen Hough, piano with Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra Brett Mitchell, conductor

GOODYEAR® IS PROUD TO SPONSOR THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA AND HELP SHARE THE VALUE AND JOY OF MUSIC. goodyear.com ©2014 The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. All rights reserved.

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BLOSSOM MUSIC FESTIVAL

Saturday evening, July 26, 2014, at 7:00 p.m.

THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA J O H N S T O RG Å R D S , conductor

KENT/BLOSSOM CHAMBER ORCHESTRA B R E T T M I T C H E L L , conductor

Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra conducted by Brett Mitchell richard wagner (1813-1883)

Siegfried Idyll

maurice ravel (1875-1937)

Le Tombeau de Couperin 1.

2.

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Prélude Forlane Menuet Rigaudon

INTERMISSION

The Cleveland Orchestra conducted by John Storgårds ludwig van beethoven (1770-1827) Overture to Fidelio, Opus 72 PROGRAM LISTING CONTINUES

Blossom Music Festival

Program: July 26

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PROGRAM LISTING CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

franz liszt (1811-1886)

Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-at major 1.

2.

3.

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Allegro maestoso — Quasi adagio — Allegretto vivace — Allegro marziale animato

(played as one movement) STEPHEN HOUGH, piano

INTERMISSION

The Cleveland Orchestra and Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra performing side-by-side conducted by John Storgårds jean sibelius (1865-1957)

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Opus 43 1.

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Allegretto Andante, ma rubato Vivacissimo — Finale: Allegro moderato

This concert is sponsored by The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

Stephen Hough’s appearance with The Cleveland Orchestra is made possible by a gift to the Orchestra’s Guest Artist Fund from The Payne Fund.

This concert is dedicated to Robert Conrad and his late wife, Jean, in recognition of their extraordinary generosity in support of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2013-14 Annual Fund.

With this concert, The Cleveland Orchestra gratefully honors The Sisler McFawn Foundation for its generous support.

Media Partners: WCLV Classical 104.9 FM ideastream® and The Plain Dealer

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Program: July 26

Blossom Music Festival

John Storgårds Serving as chief conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and artistic director of the Chamber Orchestra of Lapland, John Storgårds is also an accomplished violinist.

The Finnish conductor is making his Cleveland Orchestra debut with this evening’s concert.

John Storgårds was concertmaster of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra during Esa-Pekka Salonen’s tenure there, and subsequently studied conducting with Eri Klas and Jorma Panula. He received the Finnish State Prize for Music in 2002 and the Pro Finlandia Prize 2012.

Mr. Storgårds made his North American debut with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra during the 2005-06 season and, since that time, has appeared with many major orchestras across the continent, including those of Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Ottawa, St. Louis, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington D.C. He has also been active as a guest conductor in Europe, appearing with the major Scandinavian orchestras, and the Bergen Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Warsaw Philharmonic, among others.

Known for his commitment to contemporary music, John Storgårds recently conducted the premieres of Brett Dean’s trumpet concerto, Jukka Linkola’s piano concerto, and a new opera by Uljas Pulkkis. His recent engagements have also included Verdi’s Don Carlos with Tampere Opera and the Finnish premiere of Rodion Shchedrin’s The Enchanted Wanderer with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. Mr. Storgårds regularly conducts opera with the Chamber Orchestra of Lapland; this season they performed Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri. This summer, Mr. Storgårds and the ensemble are appearing at Festival Culturel International de Musique Symphonique Algiers and at several European festivals.

John Storgårds’s discography on BIS Records, Chandos, Ondine, and Sony includes the award-winning album of Peteris Vasks’s violin concerto Distant Light and second symphony, as well as Kaija Saariaho’s Graal Theatre and works by Corigliano and Korngold. With the BBC Philharmonic, Mr. Storgårds has recorded a Sibelius symphony cycle; they are currently recording the Nielsen symphonies together. NPR named his album of musical works by Holmboe with the Chamber Orchestra of Lapland one of the top 10 recordings of 2012, and it was shortlisted for a 2013 Gramophone Award. Mr. Storgårds’s recording of pieces by Einojuhani Rautavaara received a 2012 Gramophone Award and 2013 Grammy nomination.

For more information, visit www.johnstorgards.com.

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Conductor

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Brett Mitchell

Assistant Conductor Elizabeth Ring and William Gwinn Mather Endowed Chair The Cleveland Orchestra

P H OTO BY R O G E R MA S T R O I A N N I

Brett Mitchell is completing his first year as assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra and music director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. As assistant conductor, Mr. Mitchell serves as cover conductor for Severance Hall and Blossom Music Festival subscription concerts, and provides assistance to music director Franz Welser-Möst — he stepped in earlier this year to lead two evening subscription concerts of The Cleveland Orchestra for Mr. Welser-Möst, who was temporarily taken ill that weekend, and also stepped in last weekend for an ailing guest conductor. In addition to his responsibilities in Cleveland, Brett Mitchell recently completed his fourth season as music director of Michigan’s Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra.

In recent seasons, Mr. Mitchell has led the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, as well as the orchestras of Baltimore, Memphis, Oregon, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Rochester, and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Washington D.C.’s National Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Northwest Mahler Festival Orchestra. He has also served as musical assistant and cover conductor with the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra. Recent return engagements include appearances with the National Symphony Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Houston Symphony, and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

Brett Mitchell served as assistant conductor with the Houston Symphony (2007-11), where he concurrently held a League of American Orchestras American Conducting Fellowship. Since that time, he has returned to lead the Houston Symphony regularly as a guest conductor. He was also an assistant conductor to Kurt Masur at the Orchestre National de France (2006-09) and served as director of orchestras at Northern Illinois University (2005-07). He was associate conductor of the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble (2002-06), where he led many subscription programs, six world premieres, and several recording projects. Mr. Mitchell has also served as music director of nearly a dozen opera productions, principally as music director at the Moores Opera Center in Houston (2010-13), where he led eight productions.

A native of Seattle, Brett Mitchell holds a doctor of musical arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was also music director of the University Orchestra. He earned a bachelor of music degree in composition from Western Washington University. Mr. Mitchell also participated in the National Conducting Institute in Washington D.C., and studied with Lorin Maazel and Kurt Masur.

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Conductor

2014 Blossom Festival

An Evening . . . with Kent/Blossom Music Festival and The Cleveland Orchestra Kent/Blossom Music Festival is a five-week summer institute for professional music training operated

by Kent State University in cooperation with The Cleveland Orchestra and Blossom Music Center.

Each summer since 1968, musicians of The Cleveland Orchestra and other faculty members have gathered to mentor a select group of students in chamber music, orchestral repertoire, and private lessons. Tonight’s concert continues this long and valued partnership of The Cleveland Orchestra and Kent/Blossom Music Festival.

To open this evening’s concert, the Kent/Blossom Music Festival Chamber Orchestra performs two works conducted by Cleveland Orchestra assistant conductor Brett Mitchell. Following the first intermission, The Cleveland Orchestra and guest conductor John Storgårds present three works

by Romantic composers, including Franz Liszt’s First Piano Concerto with guest soloist Stephen Hough. In the concert finale, Kent/Blossom students join their Cleveland Orchestra counterparts side-by-side in performing Jean Sibelius’s soulstirring Symphony No. 2

K E N T / B L O S S O M M U S I C F E S T I VA L 2 0 1 4

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

VIOLIN I Tak Kin Wong Samuel Huang Kallen Bierly Yang Zeng Gabriel Napoli Calvin Cheng Dorothy Gomez

VIOLA Jordyn Woodhams Emily Jones Alberta Fan Kathleen Crabtree Rachel Hogle Xiaohan Sun Ke Zhang

FLUTE Kayla Faurie Carol Joe

VIOLIN II Bram Margoles Nina Wong Erin Kellly Long Wu Chan U Tong Ng Zhiyue You

CELLO Brian Klickman Eunsol Lee David Olson Hye-Eun Park Shing Ann Yeh Yeil Park Jeff Millen

CLARINET Kai-Ju Ho Drew Sullivan

OBOE Sarah Kendis Justine Myers Mary Riddell

BASSOON David Husby Joshua Sechan Sarah Tako

DOUBLE BASS Christopher Glavac

Blossom Festival 2014

Kent/Blossom Music Festival

HORN Samuel Hartman Emily Schaefer Jessica Young TRUMPET Larry Herman HARP Jody Guinn

For further information about the Kent/Blossom Music Festival, see pages 60-61 of the 2014 Blossom Festival Book, or visit WWW. KENT. EDU /BLOSSOM

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Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra

Siegfried Idyll composed 1870

than a gift of music, written and performed as a surprise gift on the morning your birthday? Thus was the 33-year-old Cosima Wagner awakened on Christmas Day 1870 to the sound of a 16-piece chamber orchestra sitting and standing on the stairway and landing leading to her bedroom, conducted by her husband, the 53-year-old Richard Wagner. The Siegfried Idyll was a gift of love, featuring musical offerings and melodies filled with meaning for husband and wife.

In addition to the personal references that Cosima clearly understood — including the work’s original subtitle, “Fidi’s Birdsong and Orange Sunrise,” referring to a nickname for their 18-month-old son and the winter sunrise striking against the orange wallpaper in Cosima’s room — this chamber work had also presented Wagner the opportunity to “try out” some music that would be required to complete his grand four-opera cycle titled The Ring of the Nibelung. Here, in the safe confines of domesticity, he sketched ideas that he would soon borrow and transform into larger portions in the last act of the opera Siegfried. (For example, he repurposed the Idyll’s opening theme by giving it to Brünnhilde to sing soon after she is awakened by the opera’s hero, neatly mirroring Cosima’s own awakening with the original gift music.)

The chamber work was originally titled “Tribschen Idyll,” after the name of the Wagners’ home Tribschen on Lake Lucerne. Cosima treasured the score, and there were several encore performances in subsequent years — although these did not require the scheduling of secret rehearsals that Wagner had arranged for the surprise premiere. Indeed, Cosima felt troubled when Wagner chose to expand the orchestration (to 35 players) and have the musical “love letter” published, as the Siegfried Idyll, in order to raise some much-needed cash.

As a work for chamber orchestra, the Siegfried Idyll holds an unusual place in Wagner’s output. Almost all of the music he wrote as a mature artist is contained in the ten or eleven operas that he created over the span of four decades. The size of the ensemble for the Siegfried Idyll was chosen, in large part, for how many musicians he thought could be assembled in the house’s stairway and landing. Evenso, this chamber instrumenW H AT C O U LD B E M O R E E N D E A R I N G

by

Richard

WAGNER born May 22, 1813 Leipzig died February 13, 1883 Venice

At a Glance This work runs about 20 minutes in performance.

Wagner scored it for a chamber orchestra of 4 violins, 2 violas, cello, bass, flute, oboe, 2 clarinets, bassoon, 2 horns, and trumpet.

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About the Music

Blossom Music Festival

tation also gave Wagner the challenge of writing for smaller forces and with greater delineation than the large orchestras he normally employed in the opera house.

Siegfried Idyll, in addition to being a loving wake-up song, is also built as a lullaby, to gently waken and soothe. It builds gradually to a climax, with the trumpet player counting many measures of rest before finally joining voices, briefly, with the rest of the ensemble. From there, the music winds its way down again, to a gentle close, beaming with joyful rest.

—Eric Sellen © 2014 Eric Sellen currently serves as The Cleveland Orchestra’s program book editor.

Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra

Le Tombeau de Couperin [Memorial to Couperin] composed 1914-20

by

Maurice

RAVEL born March 7, 1875

Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées died December 28, 1937 Paris

Blossom Festival 2014

C O M P O S E R S H A V E A LW AY S been inspired by the music of the past. But whereas in earlier days the most important impulses tended to come from the generation immediately preceding the time of writing, in the 19th and 20th centuries many composers began to find ways to incorporate the more distant past into their works. When this occurs, we can no longer speak of a smooth and gradual transition from one musical style to another; rather, the source of inspiration and the new work remain two separate entities, juxtaposed and affecting each other but quite distinct nevertheless.

In many of his works, Maurice Ravel may be regarded as a precursor of “neo-classicism,” a movement that flourished after World War I, with Igor Stravinsky (who was, by the way, a close friend of Ravel’s) as one of its leaders. Ravel often wrote into his music features derived from the music of the 17th and 18th centuries, as did the “neo-classicals” coming after him. His early Menuet antique already showed this tendency, as did the Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn. But Ravel’s best-known homage to the past is his Tombeau de Couperin, in which he re-created several Baroque instrumental forms in a 20th-century idiom.

François Couperin (1668-1733) was one of the greatest About the Music

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At a Glance Ravel created Le Tombeau de Couperin as a suite for piano (its original title was going to be Suite française).

He began writing in 1914, but his work was interrupted by World War I. He completed the piano suite in 1917, dedicating each of its six movements in memory of a friend or friends killed in the war.

The first performance of the piano suite was given on April 11, 1919, by Marguerite Long at the Salle Gaveau in Paris. Later the same year, Ravel orchestrated four of the suite’s six movements.

The orchestral version was premiered on February 28, 1920, by the Pasdeloup Orchestra led by RhenéBaton. The first performance of the orchestral suite in the United States took place on November 19, 1920, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pierre Monteux.

The orchestral Tombeau de Couperin runs about 20 minutes in performance.

Ravel scored it for 2 flutes, 2 oboes (second doubling english horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, trumpet, harp, and strings.

masters of the French Baroque, called “Le Grand” in his own time. (He belonged to a dynasty of musicians that has often been compared to that of the Bachs.)

As an exercise toward creating Le Tombeau de Couperin, Ravel prepared an arrangement of a dance by Couperin. The form of this was the Forlane, which Ravel then used as the basis for one of the movements of his new work. The work’s overall title is somewhat misleading, for Ravel said that he did not mean to memorialize that composer in particular, but to pay homage to French Baroque musical sensibilities in general.

The original version of Le Tombeau de Couperin, completed in 1917, was for solo piano and featured six movements: Prélude — Fugue — Forlane — Rigaudon — Menuet — Toccata. With the end of World War I, he dedicated each movement in memory of specific fallen comrades. (Ravel had served as a truck driver in the French army during the war.)

After the piano piece’s premiere, in 1919, Ravel wrote an orchestral version, dispensing with the “Fugue” and the “Toccata,” and moving the “Rigaudon” to the end, thus creating a suite of three dance movements preceded by a prelude.

The Baroque inspiration in the suite can be seen especially in the rhythm. The even sixteenth-notes of the Prélude are reminiscent of the steady motion found in so many of J. S. Bach’s preludes. Similarly, the other movements follow the patterns of the Baroque dance types on which each is based. The formal designs, with repeats and recapitulations, are also those of the 18th century. But the melodies and the harmonies are Ravel’s own. Note his beloved pentatonic scale (playable on the piano’s black keys) right at the beginning of the prelude; and many exquisite chromatic modulations throughout the piece, especially in the delicate “Forlane.”

The Menuet was one of Ravel’s favorite dance forms. Ravel’s minuets are always soft and graceful, and this one (despite one fortissimo passage) is no exception. Finally, the Rigaudon consists of a dynamic opening section in C major that contrasts with a pastorale-like middle section in a slower tempo starting in C minor. In the orchestral version, this middle section features a series of lyrical woodwind solos (oboe, english horn, flute, clarinet), after which the exuberant C-major theme returns.

—Peter Laki Copyright © Musical Arts Association

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About the Music

Blossom Music Festival

The Cleveland Orchestra

Overture to Fidelio composed 1814

by

Ludwig van

BEETHOVEN born December 16, 1770 Bonn died March 26, 1827 Vienna

At a Glance This overture runs just over 5 minutes in performance.

Beethoven scored it for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings.

T H E S T O R Y O F H O W B E E T H O V E N came to write his only opera, Fidelio, is as full of dramatic twists and turns as the opera itself. Primarily an instrumental composer, Beethoven revolutionized symphonic, chamber, and piano music by introducing a level of personal expression that had only been hinted at by other composers. Thus, when he turned to writing an opera, he wanted it to be a personal statement about the human values that were the most important to him. These included the celebration of freedom, the defeat of tyranny, and love between husband and wife (a “happiness” that forever eluded this lifelong bachelor).

As a young man, Beethoven had been deeply affected by the ideas of the French Revolution. It is not surprising, therefore, that he found the subject for his opera in a French play from the revolutionary period. The story is about Leonore, a political prisoner’s wife who disguises herself as a man in order to rescue her husband from jail. Beethoven was not, in fact, the first composer to be attracted to this story — three others had written operas based on the same play in the years before he did.

Beethoven’s opera was not successful at first. The original production in 1805 had only three performances, a revised version the following year only two. The upheavals of the Napoleonic wars, coupled with theatrical intrigues and insufficient rehearsal time, all conspired to doom these productions of what, at the time, was called Leonore. Eight years later, Beethoven’s friends persuaded him to revise it one more time and, under the new title Fidelio, it was an unqualified success.

For each of these productions, Beethoven wrote a different overture. But . . . what are today known as the three “Leonore” overtures are all such big works (nearly 15 minutes each) that they seem to overwhelm the opera even before it begins. The Fidelio Overture of 1814 is a shorter “curtain raiser,” meant merely to whet the appetite for the dramatic action to follow.

The main musical ideas of the Fidelio Overture — presented right at the beginning — are a fanfare melody, played by the whole orchestra, and a slow-moving theme for a pair of horns, answered by the clarinets. Elements of one or another are present throughout this tightly constructed, spirited overture.

—Peter Laki Copyright © Musical Arts Association

Blossom Music Festival

About the Music

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Stephen Hough One of the most distinctive artists of his generation, Stephen Hough combines a distinguished career as a concert pianist with those of a composer and a writer. Named

by The Economist as one of 20 Living Polymaths, Hough was the first classical performer to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, joining prominent scientists, writers, and others who have made unique contributions to contemporary life. He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire in early 2014. Mr. Hough made his Cleveland Orchestra debut in July 1988 and most recently performed here in July 2010.

Born in north west England, Stephen Hough’s career was launched by winning first prize at the 1983 Naumburg Competition in New York. He has since performed with many of the world’s major orchestras and given recitals at the most prestigious concert halls. He is a regular guest at festivals such as Salzburg, Mostly Mozart, Tanglewood, Edinburgh, and the BBC Proms, where he has made over twenty concerto appearances. In 2010, he was named winner of the UK’s Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award.

The 2013-14 season featured Mr. Hough in residency with the BBC Philharmonic, performing concertos by Brahms, Liszt, and Schumann. Other recent engagements have included appearances with the Royal Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, and Tokyo’s NHK Symphony, and a tour with Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra.

Stephen Hough’s catalog of over fift y albums has garnered many international awards, including the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, several Grammy nominations, and eight Gramophone Awards. Future releases include recordings of both Brahms concertos, works by Janáček and Scriabin, and an album titled In The Night featuring the premiere recording of his own Piano Sonata No. 2 (notturno luminoso). His acclaimed iPad app, The Liszt Sonata, was released by Touch Press in 2013. Mr. Hough’s recordings of his own compositions are on Linn Records.

As a composer, Mr. Hough has written chamber, choral, symphonic, instrumental, and solo piano works. The Indianapolis Symphony and Chorus gave the premiere of the orchestrated version of his Missa Mirabilis in 2012. The Westminster Abbey Choir gave the first performance of his Mass of Innocence and Experience for the 250th anniversary of William Blake’s birth. The National Gallery in London commissioned his string sextet, Requiem Aeternum: after Victoria.

As a writer, Stephen Hough is regularly published by The Guardian, London Times, and The Telegraph, where he is author of one of the most popular cultural blogs worldwide. He is a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music and holds the International Chair of Piano Studies at his Alma Mater, the Royal Northern College of Music.

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Soloist

The Cleveland Orchestra

The Cleveland Orchestra

Piano Concerto No. 1 composed 1830-53; revised 1855-56

his thirty-fift h birthday, Franz Liszt, a fervent reader of Dante’s Divine Comedy, was keenly aware that he was “midway through the path of our life.” As he wrote to Prince Carl Alexander, the future Grand Duke of Weimar: “The time has come for me . . . to break out of my virtuoso’s chrysalis and allow my thought unfettered flight.”

Up to that point, Liszt had been pursuing an extremely active concert schedule that had taken him to every corner of Europe. Though universally acclaimed as the greatest pianist of his time, he was also aspiring to be recognized as a composer, too. He had been writing music all his life (mainly piano music), but now he longed to concentrate on composition, tackle the great orchestral forms (symphonies, concertos, etc.) and bring into reality the novel ideas that had occupied his mind for some time.

Liszt’s appointment in 1848 as music director at the court of Weimar marked the end of extensive travelling and allowed him to spend more time composing. During the ten years of his tenure in Weimar, Liszt wrote his twelve great symphonic poems, his two symphonies (Faust and Dante), his B-minor Sonata for piano, and completed his two piano concertos and his Totentanz [“Dance of Death”] for piano and orchestra, which he had begun years earlier. During these years, he was also active as an operatic and symphonic conductor, leading the premiere of Wagner’s Lohengrin in 1850.

One of the main ideas Liszt brought to fruition during his Weimar period can be described as the “transformation technique.” This technique, essentially a kind of extended variation, involves a basic theme recurring throughout a work and undergoing fundamental changes in character, tempo, rhythm, and in other musical ways. Liszt was inspired by Franz Schubert’s example, who had based all four interconnected movements of his Wanderer fantasy for piano on a single theme, played in turn slowly and fast, in a lyrical and then in a dramatic vein.

(Liszt transcribed Schubert’s Wanderer fantasy for piano and orchestra in 1851.)

In his symphonic poems, Liszt put the transformation technique to work in serving and portraying (acting out through music) literary programs. In his two piano concertos, as well

H AV I N G R E AC H E D

by

Franz

LISZT born October 22, 1811 Doborján, Hungary (now Raiding, Austria) died July 31, 1886 Bayreuth, Germany

Blossom Festival 2014

About the Music

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At a Glance Liszt worked on his Piano Concerto No. 1, off and on, for more than 20 years. The first sketches go back as far as 1830; the bulk of the work was completed in the 1840s, with more revisions made in 1853 and 1856. The premiere took place in Weimar on February 17, 1855, with the composer at the piano and Hector Berlioz conducting.

The score, published in 1857, is dedicated to composer and pianist Henry Litolff.

This concerto runs about 20 minutes in performance.

Liszt scored it for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, cymbals, triangle, strings, and solo piano.

The first American performance of this concerto was given by Theodore Thomas’s Orchestra in New York on December 2, 1865, with Sebastian Bach Mills as the soloist. Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 entered The Cleveland Orchestra’s repertoire in January 1921, when it was played by Mischa Levitzki under music director Nikolai Sokoloff’s direction.

as his B-minor Sonata, he used this technique as a device of “absolute” music (music without a storyline), in order to achieve greater structural coherence and to create a unity of musical form in which everything grows “organically” out of just a few basic cells or musical phrases.

The E-flat major concerto is in a single movement, but the outlines of a four-movement form (allegro-slow movementscherzo-finale) are clearly discernible, in sections marked with differing tempo labels. Each one of these is relatively short, and many of their themes are transformed in character as the work progresses.

The opening Allegro maestoso section starts with a chromatic theme (moving by half-steps), played by the orchestra.

The piano bursts in with a virtuoso cadenza. The chromatic theme then returns to dominate much of the movement.

The slow section (marked Quasi adagio) has a lyrical melody in an operatic style. The Scherzo (marked Allegretto vivace) brings an almost constant ring of triangle strokes, which the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick found to be utterly frivolous.

This is followed by a substantial recapitulation of material from the opening Allegro.

In the finale, some of the Adagio’s themes also return, brought to new life as the lyrical song is turned into a triumphant march, while another cantabile (Italian for “singable” or “songlike”) theme heard earlier becomes a playful and virtuosic etude. The music of the Scherzo, too, reappears, followed by the final Presto section, in which we hear again the chromatic theme with which the concerto began. The work concludes with a cascade of octaves going up and down the entire keyboard in chromatic half-steps, in keeping with the concerto’s initial musical idea.

—Peter Laki Copyright © Musical Arts Association

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About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

Side-by-Side Performance

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Opus 43 composed 1901-02

by

Jean

SIBELIUS born December 8, 1865 Hämeenlinna, Finland died September 20, 1957 Järvenpää, Finland

Blossom Festival 2014

J E A N S I B E L I U S was more than Finland’s greatest composer of international reputation. For the Finns, he was — and still is — a national hero, who expressed what was widely regarded as the essence of the Finnish character in music.

In his symphonic poems, Sibelius drew on the rich tradition of the ancient Finnish epic, the Kalevala, both for his storylines and for the rhythms of its speech turned into music. And in his seven symphonies, he developed a style that has come to be seen as profoundly Finnish and Nordic. It was a logical continuation of the late Romantic tradition inherited from Johannes Brahms, Edvard Grieg, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and at the same time a highly personal idiom to which he held steadfastly in the midst of a musical world filled with an increasing multiplicity of new styles.

Each of Sibelius’s symphonies has its own personality.

The Second is distinguished by a predilection for melodies that sound like folksongs — although Sibelius insisted that he had not used any original folk melodies in the symphony. We know, however, that he was interested in the folk music of his country and, in 1892, he visited Karelia, the Eastern province of Finland known for the archaic style of its songs.

It was perhaps Sibelius’s avowed interest in folksong that prompted commentators to suggest a patriotic political program for the Second Symphony. The conductor Georg Schnéevoigt, a close friend of Sibelius and one of the most prominent early performers of his music, claimed that the symphony’s first movement depicted the quiet pastoral life of the Finnish people, with the subsequent movements outlining, in turn, the Russian oppressors, the awakening of national resistance, and finally the triumph over foreign rule. These ideas were certainly timely as the 19th century turned into the 20th, when Finland was in fact ruled by the Russian Czar and nationalist sentiments were growing. But Sibelius himself never made any statements about such a “program” within the Second Symphony.

In the first movement, Sibelius “teases” the listener by introducing his musical material in bits and pieces, and taking an unusually long time to establish connections among the various short motifs introduced. The gaps are filled in only gradually.

Eventually, however, the outlines of a symphonic form become About the Music

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At a Glance Sibelius composed much of his Second Symphony during the spring of 1901 while in Italy and completed it in Finland during the winter of 1901-02. It was first performed on March 8, 1902, in Helsingfors (Helsinki) with Sibelius conducting. The symphony was published in 1903 with a dedication to Axel Carpelan, who had made Sibelius’s Italian trip possible.

This symphony runs about 45 minutes in performance. Sibelius scored it for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings.

Sibelius’s Second was first performed in the Cleveland area on March 16, 1917, by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Joseph Stransky. The Cleveland Orchestra played it for the first time in November 1927, under the direction of Nikolai Sokoloff. The Orchestra has presented it frequently since that time, at Severance Hall, at Blossom, and on tour.

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evident and by the end of the movement everything falls into place. In his 1935 book on Sibelius’s symphonies, Cecil Gray observed: “Whereas in the symphony of Sibelius’s predecessors the thematic material is generally introduced in an exposition, taken to pieces, dissected, and analyzed in a development section, and put together again in a recapitulation, Sibelius in the first movement of the Second Symphony inverts the process, introducing thematic fragments in the exposition, building them up to an organic whole in the development section, then dispersing and dissolving the material back into its primary constituents in a brief recapitulation.”

The second movement (“Tempo andante, ma rubato”) opens in a quite exceptional way — a timpani roll followed by an extended, unaccompanied passage of low strings (double basses and cellos in turn) played pizzicato (“plucked”). This gives rise to the first melody, marked lugubre (“mournful”) and played by the bassoons. This continues the exclusive use of low-pitched instruments in this opening section, but slowly and hesitatingly, the higher woodwinds and strings enter. Little by little, both the pitch and the volume rise, and the tempo increases to Poco allegro, with a climax marked by fortissimo chords in the brass. As a total contrast, a gentle violin melody, played very very soft ly at triple pianissimo and in a new key, starts a new section. The lugubre theme, its impassioned offshoots, and the new violin melody dominate the rest of the movement.

The movement ends with a closing motif derived from this last melody, made more resolute by a fuller orchestration.

The third movement (“Vivacissimo”) is a dashing scherzo with a short and languid trio section. The singularity of the trio theme, played by the first oboe, is that it begins with a single note repeated no less than nine times, yet it is immediately perceived as a melody. The rest of the theme is eminently melodic, with a graceful tag added by the two clarinets. After a recapitulation of the scherzo proper, the trio is heard another time, followed by a masterly transition that leads directly into the triumphant finale without a break.

The first theme of the fourth-movement Finale is simple and pithy. It is played by the strings at a forte (“loud”) dynamic, to a weighty accompaniment by low brass and timpani. The haunting second theme has a four-line structure found in many folksongs, and is played by the woodwinds much softer than the first theme, though eventually rising in volume. After a About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

short development section, the triumphant first and the folksonglike second themes both return. Repeated several times with the participation of ever greater orchestral forces, the second theme builds up to a powerful climax. The first theme is then restated by the full orchestra as a concluding, triumphant gesture.

—Peter Laki

Copyright © Musical Arts Association

Peter Laki is a musicologist and frequent lecturer on classical music. He is a visiting associate professor at Bard College.

The Cleveland Orchestra SEASON

Music Study Groups Welcome and special thanks to our community partners who have graciously agreed to host a Cleveland Orchestra Music Study Group during the upcoming 2014-15 Season at Severance Hall: Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library Cuyahoga County Public Library Beachwood Branch Brecksville Branch Fairview Park Branch Orange Branch St. Paul’s Episcopal Church of Cleveland Heights Welcome also and many thanks to our partners who generously support special services for persons with vision loss in Cleveland Orchestra Music Study Groups: Cleveland Sight Center The Robert Cull Family, who have endowed the Orchestra’s Alice H. Cull Memorial Fund Music Study Groups are led by Dr. Rose Breckenridge and explore current concert music performed by The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall through informal lectures and guided listening. Series options include location and length — fall, winter, and/or spring.

For more information, please contact the Orchestra’s Education & Community Programs Department by calling 216-231-7355, or visit clevelandorchestra.com.

Blossom Festival 2014

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THE CLEVELAND ORCH

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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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The Cleveland Orchestra

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

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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.

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.

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 NightMusic”] 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 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!