MAHLER 9 16, 17 & 19 MARCH 2018
CONCERT PROGRAM
MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Aspiring to the sublime: Mahler 9 ‘Wohin ich geh'? Ich geh', ich wand're in die Berge. Ich suche Ruhe für mein einsam Herz.’ (Where do I go? I go, I wander in the mountains. I seek peace for my lonely heart.) Mahler’s Ninth Symphony continues where Der Abschied, the last movement from his Lied von der Erde, ends. A similar feeling of farewell and resignation permeates most of this Symphony. Is it a coincidence that the first movement opens with a motif that alludes to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No.26 Les Adieux? Beethoven wrote the word ‘Le-be-wohl’ (Farewell) above the three descending chords that Mahler quotes in his Symphony. The two middle movements are an emotional rollercoaster, with an angelic trumpet melody in the Rondo Burlesque pointing at the sublime serenity of the Adagio that concludes the Symphony. The last page of the Ninth is the most visionary in all of Mahler’s oeuvre. Here, the music becomes silence and this silence is deafening. As Leonard Bernstein, the great Mahlerian, whose anniversary we celebrate this year, wrote: ‘...the strands of sound disintegrate. We hold on to them, hovering between hope and submission… We cling to them as they dematerialise; we are holding two – then one. One, and suddenly none. For a petrifying moment there is only silence. Then again, a strand, a broken strand, two strands, one... none. We are half in love with easeful death... now more than ever seems it rich to die, to cease upon the midnight with no pain...
And in ceasing, we lose it all. But in letting go, we have gained everything.’ Almost at the end of MSO’s Mahler cycle of Symphonies, the Ninth aspires to the sublime, and to what lies beyond. Ronald Vermeulen Director of Artistic Planning
For further listening we recommend: On 7–8 June, conductor Andrea Molino will lead the MSO in a Mahler rarity: the tone poem Totenfeier. This work became the basis for the first movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony. But even after the Symphony’s premiere, Mahler kept performing Totenfeier as a separate piece. In the same concert, Mahler-baritone par excellence, Thomas Hampson will perform the Songs of a Wayfarer.
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Sir Andrew Davis conductor Mahler Symphony No.9
There are many good recordings of the Ninth Symphony. I wouldn’t want to be without the insights of Bruno Walter, who conducted the world premiere – and his recording comes with an interview and rehearsal fragments (Sony), Leonard Bernstein’s performance from the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, or Carlo Maria Giulini’s deeply human interpretation from Chicago (both Deutsche Grammophon). For an excellent, more recent, version, look at the DVD of the Luzern Festival Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado on Accentus.
Running time 1 hour and 30 minutes, there will be no interval during this concert In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for dimming the lighting on your mobile phone.
mso.com.au
The MSO acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are performing. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from other communities who may be in attendance.
3
MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
MEET THE CONDUCTOR
PROGRAM NOTES GUSTAV MAHLER
(1860-1911)
Symphony No.9 in D Andante comodo Im Tempo eines gemächlichen Ländlers. Etwas täppisch und sehr derb (In the tempo of a leisurely Ländler. Rather clumsy and very coarse). Established in 1906, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an arts leader and Australia’s longest-running professional orchestra. Chief Conductor Sir Andrew Davis has been at the helm of MSO since 2013. Engaging more than 3 million people each year, the MSO reaches a variety of audiences through live performances, recordings, TV and radio broadcasts and live streaming. Sir Andrew Davis gave his inaugural concerts as the MSO’s Chief Conductor in 2013. The MSO also works with Associate Conductor Benjamin Northey and Assistant Conductor Tianyi Lu, as well as with such eminent recent guest conductors as Tan Dun, John Adams, Jakub Hrůša and JukkaPekka Saraste. It has also collaborated with non-classical musicians including Sir Elton John, Nick Cave and Armand van Helden.
4
SIR ANDREW DAVIS Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis is also Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. He is Conductor Laureate of both the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony, where he has also been named interim Artistic Director until 2020. In a career spanning more than 40 years he has conducted virtually all the world’s major orchestras and opera companies Sir Andrew’s many CDs include a Messiah nominated for a 2018 Grammy, Bliss’ The Beatitudes, and a recording with the Bergen Philharmonic of Vaughan Williams’ Job/Symphony No.9 nominated for a 2018 BBC Music Magazine Award. With the MSO he has just released a third recording in the ongoing Richard Strauss series, featuring the Alpine Symphony and Till Eulenspiegel.
Rondo-Burleske (Allegro assai) Sehr trotzig (Very defiant) Adagio At the end of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, completed in 1904, three mighty hammer blows thunder down, a symbol of fate so terrifying that Mahler himself removed one of them from the revised score of 1906. But perhaps it was too late and the gods had been tempted once too often. In the following year, 1907, Mahler himself suffered his own triple disaster. His beloved four-year-old daughter, Maria, died from scarlet fever, Mahler himself was sacked from the Vienna State Opera where he had served with distinction for ten years, and he was diagnosed with a terminal heart condition. Not surprisingly, especially given the poor state of his general health, Mahler collapsed into a psychological heap, ‘as a tree is felled’. The stress on him and his family became intolerable. As the ailing Mahler sought to rebuild his career in New York, commuting back and forth annually across the Atlantic so that his longstanding routine of summer composition in Europe could continue, his wife, Alma, suffered a nervous breakdown of her own.
As time went on and the strains of life showed no signs of abating, Mahler emerged into a curious mixture of despair and elation. ‘I have lived through so much in the last year and a half, that I can hardly talk about it,’ he wrote to his conducting disciple Bruno Walter in 1909. ‘How should I attempt to describe so appalling a crisis! I see everything in a new light – feel so much alive, and the habit of being alive is sweeter than ever. I should not be surprised at times if suddenly I should notice that I had a new body (like Faust in the last scene)!’ The wild mood swings continued and while Mahler completed his Seventh and then Eighth Symphonies, he and Alma began to go their separate ways, she into the arms of other lovers, he into consultations with psychotherapists including, most famously, an encounter with Sigmund Freud in 1910. Although their love endured until the end, their new mutual directions meant that Alma and Mahler began to spend their summers apart. In 1909, Alma deposited Mahler at his composing hut near Toblach and continued on herself to Levico, where she sought treatment for her ongoing nervous condition. Mahler’s own state of mind was euphoric to the point of delusion. ‘I feel marvellous here!’ he wrote to her. ‘To be able to sit working by the open window, and breathing the air, the trees and flowers all the time – this is a delight I have never known till now. I see now how perverse my life in summer has always been. I feel myself getting better every minute.’
5
Less than two years later, Mahler was dead. Despite his bravura, Mahler knew all along that the end was near. He could feel his weak heart faltering, its erratic beat leaving him faint and shaky. He felt uncharacteristically superstitious, sometimes with good reason. In the last summer of Mahler’s life, while he sat composing in the hut at Toblach, for instance, a giant eagle swooped into the room, terrifying the composer. Eventually the eagle fled, but no sooner had it done so than a crow emerged from under Mahler’s sofa, it too flying back out the window. Mahler’s sanctuary of composition had been invaded by what he saw as the black harbingers of death, just as Van Gogh had depicted in his final painting. A simple, unnerving act of nature perhaps, but after the invasion of the birds Mahler would never complete another composition, nor hear his Ninth Symphony performed. Mahler hadn’t wanted to write a Ninth Symphony at all, or at least he had never wanted to name one as his Ninth. Too many of his idols, including Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner, had died after completing nine such works. So the work which was effectively his Ninth Symphony Mahler renamed Das Lied von der Erde, and pointedly referred to it as a ‘songsymphony’. Arnold Schoenberg, who was perhaps second only to Bruno Walter as Mahler’s closest professional confidant in his final years, said in a memorial speech in 1912 that ‘the Ninth is a limit. He who wants to go beyond it must pass away…Those who have written a Ninth stood too near to the hereafter.’
6
But by the time 1909 rolled around, Mahler’s ‘dark night of the soul’, as Deryck Cooke has described the mood of his final years, meant that his superstitions were no longer sufficient to prevent him from naming this work in D as his Ninth Symphony. Apparently seeing the end drawing near, he had little option but to acknowledge the likelihood of fate, although he did make a point of not showing the score to Walter – the latter, who had heard so much about it, would only see it after the composer’s death. And as it turned out, Mahler’s Ninth Symphony did indeed become his last, the elaborate draft for the Tenth that followed in the final year of his life notwithstanding. All the evidence suggests that Mahler knew it would be his last, for the mood of farewell is everywhere in the Ninth Symphony. By implication it’s there in the painfully elegiac mood of the slow outer movements, and it’s there more explicitly too through the self-conscious, deliberate references to Beethoven’s Lebewohl (Farewell) Sonata. And throughout the original manuscript score, there are the interjections of a dying man: ‘O youth! Lost! O love! Vanished!’ Mahler wrote in one part of the first movement. ‘Farewell! Farewell!’ appears in another. In the best possible way, it’s like the symphony of an old man looking back, but Mahler was not yet 50 when he completed it. Even so, its 80-minute duration is not all filled with sentiment and nostalgia. There is anger and defiance too. In the final published version of the score, for instance, the apocalyptic intention is inscribed in the markings: ‘With ire’, ‘With greatest force’, ‘Like a solemn funeral procession’.
Sometimes in this majestic symphony Mahler was going ‘gentle into that good night’ – but sometimes he wasn’t. Again as if aware of his mortality, Mahler worked on the symphony in great haste, writing to Bruno Walter, ‘I wrote the score quite rapidly, in maddening haste…as a result, the score is probably indecipherable for strangers’ eyes.’ He told Walter that he hoped he would live until the winter so that he could prepare a clean copy of the score. Mahler was spared. By April 1910 he had completed the ‘proper’ copy of the score. But he would never conduct it himself: the premiere was given by Walter in Vienna only in June 1912, more than a year after Mahler’s death. Many years later, the first three movements of that original ‘indecipherable’ manuscript turned up in the possession of its greatest admirer, the composer Alban Berg. He, more than anyone besides Walter (who was still conducting it in 1961), became a champion of the work which he described as ‘the most glorious that [Mahler] ever wrote. It expresses an extraordinary love of this earth, for Nature; the longing to live on it in peace, to enjoy it completely, to the very heart of one’s being, before death comes, as irresistibly it does.’ There are clear spiritual and emotional connections between the Ninth Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde. Walter himself commented that the title of the song cycle’s final canto, Der Abschied (Farewell), could equally have served as the heading for the later symphony. But like the First, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh works in the Mahler symphonic canon, the Ninth is a purely instrumental piece. And by Mahler’s standards its
instrumentation is modest, requiring little more than a normal large orchestra such as many of his contemporaries might have used. Throughout his career, Mahler effectively rewrote the rule book of symphonic composition, and never more so than here in the Ninth Symphony. Its sequence of movements and disposition of keys are virtually unprecedented. The slow movements form the outer pillars, framing the grotesque, even nightmarish quicker movements in the middle. The opening movement is in D major/minor, the middle two are in C major and A minor respectively, while the massive finale avoids all precedent by dropping a half-step from the nominal tonic of the symphony as a whole to D flat major, eventually dying into utter, desolate silence. It was not, of course, the only time that Mahler would end with a slow movement. As early as 1896 he employed such a device to devastating emotional effect in his Third Symphony. Nor was it the only time that a funereal quality would pervade the outer movements of his symphonies, as the funeral march which opens the Fifth Symphony attests. But for all of its disparate, conventionbreaking ingredients, in one way the Ninth remains a remarkably coherent symphony in the Classical sense, sustained as it is by its extraordinary unanimity of mood. The overall picture is one of the world caught as if in a dying glimpse – its beauty, its joy, its horror and ugliness, its compassion and cruelty all captured within the one frame and held up to examination as the light fades. While there is anger in this inevitable, inexorable farewell, there is also, abidingly, a most poignant sadness.
7
‘The whole movement is based on a premonition of death, which constantly recurs,’ Alban Berg wrote of the mighty opening Andante comodo which sets the mood and ambition of the Ninth Symphony. ‘The tenderest passages are followed by tremendous climaxes, like new eruptions of a volcano.’
This is particularly the case in the second movement, which the great theorist Theodor Adorno described as a Totentanz or ‘Dance of Death’. As in the Fourth Symphony, the violins here become ‘death’s fiddles’, their tone strained and twisted, their dance-like motives more sinister than engaging.
And yet it all begins so simply, so beautifully, with the sighing three-note figure of farewell, perhaps deriving from Beethoven but made here unmistakeably Mahler’s own, not least because of its audibly faltering heartbeat. There are in fact two main themes in this first movement, but they are developed so organically and on such a grand scale that the precepts of sonata form become irrelevant as an analytical tool. Over the course of more than half an hour it develops what one of its first commentators, Paul Bekker, described as a ‘rhapsodically free structure’. If there is a mortar which binds this massive edifice together it is perhaps the simple harp notes F#-A-B-A which, after a brief, reflective exchange on cellos and horns, set the movement on its course and recur at key points. There are plenty of rests for peace – acceptance even, of a kind unprecedented in Mahler’s earlier work – but the passion continually surges forth in the minor-key inflections of the second thematic group and the harsh blasts of trumpet chords. It is a symphony in itself, and beyond it there are still three movements to go.
Mahler didn’t know what to call this unnerving movement. He toyed for a while with ‘Scherzo’ and then replaced it with ‘Menuetto infinito’ but neither survived through the early drafts. Nor did the description of ‘Freund Hein’ (‘Friend Hein’ – a folk name for Death) who is not an ‘evil, terrifying god, but a friendly leader, fiddling his flock into the hereafter’. Such an innocent program would scarcely do justice to the macabre undercurrent in this crucial passage of the symphony as a whole – and by this stage of his career Mahler had largely abandoned the programmatic elements which had caused him so much grief in his earlier works.
Mahler himself said that the Ninth Symphony, while very different in itself, out of all his symphonies was nevertheless most closely linked to the spirit of his Fourth.
8
What this second movement is, however, is a series of ländler-like dances in different tempi: Mahler’s own tortured version of the apotheosis of the dance. Simple at first, they develop striking harmonic complexity as they proceed, ending up as typically Mahlerian dances-gone-sour. There is mockery, there is irony, and yet at the same time there is nostalgia and a guilty sentimentality, like a flash of life itself. While he might have had trouble naming his second movement, Mahler had no such problems with the third, which he called a Rondo-Burleske.
Strauss and Reicha before Mahler had tried their hands at comic ‘burlesques’, but neither did so with the telling effect found here in this musical phantasmagoria. Again in this third movement, there is a sense almost of derision as the woes of the world are recalled and re-examined. (This movement has often been compared with the Drinking Song of the Earth’s Sorrow from Das Lied von der Erde.) Agitation becomes manifest as the contrapuntal textures develop with alarming complexity. But this is no academic exercise or mere demonstration of technical skill. The structure falls apart continually – and at one memorable moment is interrupted by a solemn chorale – as the pieces of life which the themes imitate constantly fail to deliver a complete whole. Only a compositional genius who was also a philosophical giant could bring it off. Fortunately Mahler was both, and, as the latter parts of this intense movement demonstrate, a self-mocker to boot. And then there comes the finale. Just 16 pages long in a score of more than 180 pages, it nevertheless is huge in duration and emotional power, its tempo so slow (ending Adagissimo) that it takes more than 25 minutes to perform. While Mahler had composed several comparable Adagios, most notably in the Third and Fourth Symphonies, its sense of finality makes it perhaps the finest single movement which Mahler ever composed.
In its solemnity, humanity and structural mastery one finds the very essence of Mahler’s art – and of his life, which was for him one and the same thing. There is a continual ebb and flow of intensity, heightening as the climaxes are reached, dissipating as a momentary digression is made, but always, constantly, with the main matter coming back in a new guise, moving onward, but also moving toward nothingness as it does so. It is a majestic, painful journey, from the glorious reference to Beethoven’s Lebewohl Sonata at the opening, through that fateful series of almost unbearable last-word climaxes, and on through the strings toward the inevitable conclusion in complete silence. There is death in this, and its apprehension is so urgent, so immediate, as to make Mahler – and his listeners alike – reaffirm, and perhaps even fall in love with life all over again. For in the end, we all face the same fate. Martin Buzacott © 2002 The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed this symphony on 18 November 1953 under the direction of Ricardo Castro, and most recently in July 2009 with Ilan Volkov.
9
MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Sir Andrew Davis Chief Conductor
Monica Curro
Benjamin Northey
Assistant Principal Danny Gorog and Lindy Susskind #
Tianyi Lu
Mary Allison Isin Cakmakcioglu Freya Franzen
Associate Conductor Anthony Pratt #
Cybec Assistant Conductor
Hiroyuki Iwaki
Conductor Laureate (1974-2006) FIRST VIOLINS
Dale Barltrop Concertmaster
Sophie Rowell
Concertmaster The Ullmer Family Foundation#
Peter Edwards
Assistant Principal
Kirsty Bremner Sarah Curro
Michael Aquilina#
Peter Fellin Deborah Goodall Lorraine Hook Anne-Marie Johnson Kirstin Kenny Ji Won Kim Eleanor Mancini Mark Mogilevski Michelle Ruffolo Kathryn Taylor Michael Aquilina#
Aaron Barnden* Francesca Hiew*º Jennen Ngiau-Keng* Oksana Thompson* SECOND VIOLINS
Matthew Tomkins
Principal The Gross Foundation#
Robert Macindoe Associate Principal
10
PICCOLO
HORNS
David Berlin
Andrew Macleod
Grzegorz Curyla*
Principal MS Newman Family#
Rachael Tobin
Associate Principal
Anonymous#
Zoe Freisberg Cong Gu Andrew Hall
CELLOS
Principal Third
PERCUSSION
Abbey Edlin
Robert Clarke
Rohan de Korte
The Rosemary Norman Foundation# COR ANGLAIS
TRUMPETS
HARP
Michael Pisani
Geoffrey Payne*
Yinuo Mu
Keith Johnson Sarah Morse Angela Sargeant Michelle Wood
Andrew and Theresa Dyer#
Yelian He* DOUBLE BASSES
Principal Di Jameson#
Steve Reeves
Fiona Sargeant
Andrew Moon
Principal
Associate Principal
Associate Principal
Lauren Brigden
Sylvia Hosking
Katharine Brockman Christopher Cartlidge
Damien Eckersley Benjamin Hanlon Suzanne Lee Stephen Newton
Anthony Chataway Gabrielle Halloran Trevor Jones Cindy Watkin Elizabeth Woolnough Caleb Wright Merewyn Bramble* William Clark* Justin Julian* Matthew Laing* Isabel Morse*
Jeffrey Crellin
Trinette McClimont Rebecca Luton* Alexander Morton*
Isy Wasserman Philippa West Patrick Wong Roger Young Michael Loftus-Hills*
Michael Aquilina#
Saul Lewis
Miranda Brockman
Andrew and Judy Rogers
Mr Tam Vu and Dr Cherilyn Tillman
OBOES
Lady Potter AC CMRI#
Associate Principal
Andrew Dudgeon#
Christopher Moore
Guest Principal
Principal
Geelong Friends of the MSO#
VIOLAS
Adam Jeffrey
Principal
Nicholas Bochner Assistant Principal
#
TIMPANI ∆
Assistant Principal
Sophie Galaise and Clarence Fraser #
Alexander Arai-Swale* Esther Toh* FLUTES
Prudence Davis Principal Anonymous#
Wendy Clarke
Associate Principal
Sarah Beggs Paula Rae*
Thomas Hutchinson Ann Blackburn
Principal
Nereda Hanlon and Michael Hanlon AM#
Guest Principal
Principal
John Arcaro
Tim and Lyn Edward#
Robert Cossom Brent Miller*
Principal
Shane Hooton CLARINETS
Associate Principal
Bronwyn Wallis*
David Thomas
William Evans Rosie Turner
MSO BOARD
Principal
Philip Arkinstall
Associate Principal
TROMBONES
Craig Hill Mitchell Jones*
Brett Kelly
BASS CLARINET
Jon Craven Principal
BASSOONS
Jack Schiller Principal
Chairman
Michael Ullmer
Principal
Managing Director
Richard Shirley Mike Szabo
Sophie Galaise
Principal Bass Trombone TUBA
Timothy Buzbee Principal
Scott Watson* †
Elise Millman
Associate Principal
Natasha Thomas CONTRABASSOON
Brock Imison Principal
Board Members
Andrew Dyer Danny Gorog Margaret Jackson AC Di Jameson David Krasnostein David Li Hyon-Ju Newman Glenn Sedgwick Helen Silver AO Company Secretary
Oliver Carton
# Position supported by * Guest Musician † Courtesy of University of Kansas º Courtesy of Australian String Quartet ∆ Courtesy of Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra
11
SUPPORTERS MSO PATRON The Honourable Linda Dessau AC, Governor of Victoria
PLATINUM PATRONS $100,000+ Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO John Gandel AC and Pauline Gandel The Gross Foundation David and Angela Li MS Newman Family Foundation Anthony Pratt The Pratt Foundation Joy Selby Smith Ullmer Family Foundation Anonymous (1)
VIRTUOSO PATRONS $50,000+ Di Jameson David Krasnostein and Pat Stragalinos Harold Mitchell AC Kim Williams AM
IMPRESARIO PATRONS $20,000+ Michael Aquilina The John and Jennifer Brukner Foundation Mary and Frederick Davidson AM Rachel and the late Hon. Alan Goldberg AO QC Margaret Jackson AC Andrew Johnston Mimie MacLaren John and Lois McKay
12
MAESTRO PATRONS $10,000+ Kaye and David Birks Mitchell Chipman Sir Andrew and Lady Davis Danny Gorog and Lindy Susskind Robert & Jan Green Hilary Hall, in memory of Wilma Collie Nereda Hanlon and Michael Hanlon AM Suzanne Kirkham The Cuming Bequest Ian and Jeannie Paterson Lady Potter AC CMRI Elizabeth Proust AO Xijian Ren and Qian Li Glenn Sedgwick Helen Silver AO and Harrison Young Maria Solà Profs. G & G Stephenson, in honour of the great Romanian musicians George Enescu and Dinu Lipatti Gai and David Taylor Juliet Tootell Alice Vaughan Harry and Michelle Wong Jason Yeap OAM Anonymous (1)
PRINCIPAL PATRONS $5,000+ Christine and Mark Armour John and Mary Barlow Barbara Bell, in memory of Elsa Bell Stephen and Caroline Brain Prof Ian Brighthope David and Emma Capponi May and James Chen Wendy Dimmick Andrew Dudgeon AM
Andrew and Theresa Dyer Tim and Lyn Edward Mr Bill Fleming John and Diana Frew Susan Fry and Don Fry AO Sophie Galaise and Clarence Fraser Geelong Friends of the MSO Jennifer Gorog HMA Foundation Louis Hamon OAM Hans and Petra Henkell Hartmut and Ruth Hofmann Jack Hogan Doug Hooley Jenny and Peter Hordern Dr Alastair Jackson Dr Elizabeth A Lewis AM Norman Lewis in memory of Dr Phyllis Lewis Peter Lovell Lesley McMullin Foundation Mr Douglas and Mrs Rosemary Meagher David and Helen Moses Dr Paul Nisselle AM The Rosemary Norman Foundation Ken Ong, in memory of Lin Ong Bruce Parncutt AO Jim and Fran Pfeiffer Pzena Investment Charitable Fund Andrew and Judy Rogers Rae Rothfield Max and Jill Schultz Mr Tam Vu and Dr Cherilyn Tillman The Hon. Michael Watt QC and Cecilie Hall Lyn Williams AM Anonymous (2)
ASSOCIATE PATRONS $2,500+ Dandolo Partners Will and Dorothy Bailey Bequest Anne Bowden Bill Bowness Lynne Burgess Oliver Carton John and Lyn Coppock Miss Ann Darby, in memory of Leslie J. Darby Natasha Davies, for the Trikojus Education Fund Merrowyn Deacon Sandra Dent Peter and Leila Doyle Lisa Dwyer and Dr Ian Dickson Jane Edmanson OAM Dr Helen M Ferguson Mr Peter Gallagher and Dr Karen Morley Dina and Ron Goldschlager Louise Gourlay OAM Peter and Lyndsey Hawkins Susan and Gary Hearst Colin Heggen, in memory of Marjorie Drysdale Heggen Rosemary and James Jacoby Jenkins Family Foundation C W Johnston Family John Jones George and Grace Kass Irene Kearsey and M J Ridley The Ilma Kelson Music Foundation Kloeden Foundation Bryan Lawrence Ann and George Littlewood John and Margaret Mason H E McKenzie
Allan and Evelyn McLaren Don and Anne Meadows Marie Morton FRSA Annabel and Rupert Myer AO Sue and Barry Peake Mrs W Peart Graham and Christine Peirson Ruth and Ralph Renard S M Richards AM and M R Richards Tom and Elizabeth Romanowski Jeffrey Sher QC and Diana Sher OAM Diana and Brian Snape AM Dr Norman and Dr Sue Sonenberg Geoff and Judy Steinicke Elisabeth Wagner Brian and Helena Worsfold Peter and Susan Yates Anonymous (8)
PLAYER PATRONS $1,000+ David and Cindy Abbey Christa Abdallah Dr Sally Adams Mary Armour Arnold Bloch Leibler Philip Bacon AM Marlyn and Peter Bancroft OAM Adrienne Basser Prof Weston Bate and Janice Bate Janet Bell David Blackwell OAM Michael F Boyt Patricia Brockman Dr John Brookes Suzie Brown OAM and Harvey Brown Roger and Col Buckle Jill and Christopher Buckley
Bill and Sandra Burdett Peter Caldwell Joe Cordone Andrew and Pamela Crockett Beryl Dean Dominic and Natalie Dirupo Marie Dowling John and Anne Duncan Kay Ehrenberg Jaan Enden Valerie Falconer and the Rayner Family in memory of Keith Falconer Amy & Simon Feiglin Grant Fisher and Helen Bird Barry Fradkin OAM and Dr Pam Fradkin Applebay Pty Ltd David Frenkiel and Esther Frenkiel OAM David Gibbs and Susie O'Neill Merwyn and Greta Goldblatt Colin Golvan QC and Dr Deborah Golvan George Golvan QC and Naomi Golvan Dr Marged Goode Prof Denise Grocke AO Max Gulbin Dr Sandra Hacker AO and Mr Ian Kennedy AM Jean Hadges Michael and Susie Hamson Paula Hansky OAM Merv Keehn and Sue Harlow Tilda and Brian Haughney Anna and John Holdsworth Penelope Hughes Basil and Rita Jenkins Stuart Jennings Dorothy Karpin Brett Kelly and Cindy Watkin
Dr Anne Kennedy Julie and Simon Kessel Kerry Landman William and Magdalena Leadston Andrew Lee Dr Anne Lierse Gaelle Lindrea Andrew Lockwood Violet and Jeff Loewenstein Elizabeth H Loftus Chris and Anna Long The Hon Ian Macphee AO and Mrs Julie Macphee Eleanor and Phillip Mancini Dr Julianne Bayliss In memory of Leigh Masel Ruth Maxwell Jenny McGregor AM and Peter Allen Glenda McNaught Ian Morrey and Geoffrey Minter Patricia Nilsson Laurence O'Keefe and Christopher James Alan and Dorothy Pattison Margaret Plant Kerryn Pratchett Peter Priest Treena Quarin Eli Raskin Raspin Family Trust Bobbie Renard Peter and Carolyn Rendit Dr Rosemary Ayton and Dr Sam Ricketson Joan P Robinson Cathy and Peter Rogers Doug and Elisabeth Scott Martin and Susan Shirley Penny Shore Dr Sam Smorgon AO and Mrs Minnie Smorgon
John So Dr Michael Soon Lady Southey AC Jennifer Steinicke Dr Peter Strickland Pamela Swansson Jenny Tatchell Frank Tisher OAM and Dr Miriam Tisher The Hon. Rosemary Varty Leon and Sandra Velik Sue Walker AM Elaine Walters OAM and Gregory Walters Edward and Paddy White Nic and Ann Willcock Marian and Terry Wills Cooke Lorraine Woolley Richard Ye Panch Das and Laurel Young-Das Anonymous (20)
TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS Collier Charitable Fund Crown Resorts Foundation and the Packer Family Foundation The Cybec Foundation The Marian and E.H. Flack Trust Freemasons Foundation Victoria Gandel Philanthropy The Scobie and Claire Mackinnon Trust The Harold Mitchell Foundation The Pratt Foundation The Robert Salzer Foundation Sidney Myer MSO Trust Fund Telematics Trust International Music and Art Foundation
13
'We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.' – Arthur O'Shaughnessy
Debussy and Brahms Debussy Nocturnes Finsterer Missed Tales III – The Lost – World Premiere Brahms Symphony No.4 THURSDAY 5 APRIL | 7.30pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall
mso.com.au Jun Märkl conductor
Support the music and the orchestra you love while getting to know your favourite player. Honour their talent, artistry and life-long commitment to music, and become part of the MSO family. Adopt Principal Harp, Yinuo Mu, or any of our wonderful musicians today.
mso.com.au/adopt
FRIDAY 6 APRIL | 7.30pm Robert Blackwood Hall, Monash University
14
Come dream with us by adopting your own MSO musician!
BENEFACTORS ARTIST CHAIR BENEFACTORS
ADOPT A MUSICIAN CHAIRS
Associate Conductor Chair Benjamin Northey Anthony Pratt
Principal Second Violin Chair Matthew Tomkins The Gross Foundation
Orchestral Leadership Chair Joy Selby Smith
Principal Viola Chair Chris Moore Di Jameson
Cybec Assistant Conductor Chair Tianyi Lu The Cybec Foundation
Principal Cello Chair David Berlin MS Newman Family Foundation
Associate Concertmaster Chair Sophie Rowell The Ullmer Family Foundation
Principal Flute Chair Prudence Davis Anonymous
2018 Soloist in Residence Chair Anne-Sophie Mutter Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO Cybec Young Composer in Residence Ade Vincent The Cybec Foundation
CHAIRMAN’S CIRCLE Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO The Gross Foundation Harold Mitchell Foundation David and Angela Li Harold Mitchell AC MS Newman Family Foundation Lady Potter AC CMRI Joy Selby Smith The Cybec Foundation The Pratt Foundation The Ullmer Family Foundation Anonymous (1)
16
Principal Timpani Chair Lady Potter AC CMRI Associate Principal Second Violin Monica Curro Danny Gorog and Lindy Susskind First Violin Sarah Curro Michael Aquilina First Violin Kathryn Taylor Michael Aquilina Second Violin Freya Franzen Anonymous Second Violin Andrew Hall Andrew and Judy Rogers Viola Lauren Brigden Mr Tam Vu and Dr Cherilyn Tillman
Viola Chris Cartlidge Michael Aquilina Cello Miranda Brockman Geelong Friends of the MSO Cello Rohan de Korte Andrew Dudgeon AM Cello Michelle Wood Andrew and Theresa Dyer Double Bass Stephen Newton Sophie Galaise and Clarence Fraser Oboe Ann Blackburn The Rosemary Norman Foundation French Horn Abbey Edlin Nereda Hanlon and Michael Hanlon AM Percussion John Arcaro Tim and Lyn Edward
PROGRAM BENEFACTORS Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers Program The Cybec Foundation East Meets West Supported by the Li Family Trust Meet The Orchestra Made possible by The Ullmer Family Foundation
MSO Audience Access Crown Resorts Foundation Packer Family Foundation MSO Building Capacity Gandel Philanthropy (Director of Philanthropy) MSO Education Supported by Mrs Margaret Ross AM and Dr Ian Ross MSO International Touring Harold Mitchell AC MSO Regional Touring Creative Victoria Freemasons Foundation Victoria The Robert Salzer Foundation The Pizzicato Effect Anonymous Collier Charitable Fund The Marian and E.H. Flack Trust Schapper Family Foundation Scobie and Claire Mackinnon Trust Supported by the Hume City Council’s Community Grants Program Sidney Myer Free Concerts Supported by the late Sidney Myer and the University of Melbourne
HONORARY APPOINTMENTS John Brockman OAM* Life Member The Honourable Alan Goldberg AO QC* Life Member Sir Elton John CBE Life Member Lady Potter AC CMRI Life Member Ila Vanrenen* Life Member Geoffrey Rush AC Ambassador
CONDUCTOR’S CIRCLE Current Conductor’s Circle Members Jenny Anderson David Angelovich G C Bawden and L de Kievit Lesley Bawden Joyce Bown Mrs Jenny Brukner and the late Mr John Brukner Ken Bullen Peter A Caldwell Luci and Ron Chambers Beryl Dean Sandra Dent Lyn Edward Alan Egan JP Gunta Eglite Mr Derek Grantham Marguerite Garnon-Williams Drs L C Gruen and R W Wade Louis Hamon OAM Carol Hay Tony Howe Laurence O'Keefe and Christopher James
Audrey M Jenkins John Jones George and Grace Kass Mrs Sylvia Lavelle Pauline and David Lawton Cameron Mowat Rosia Pasteur Elizabeth Proust AO Penny Rawlins Joan P Robinson Neil Roussac Anne Roussac-Hoyne Suzette Sherazee Michael Ryan and Wendy Mead Anne Kieni-Serpell and Andrew Serpell Jennifer Shepherd Profs. Gabriela and George Stephenson Pamela Swansson Lillian Tarry Dr Cherilyn Tillman Mr and Mrs R P Trebilcock
Michael Ullmer Ila Vanrenen The Hon. Rosemary Varty Mr Tam Vu Marian and Terry Wills Cooke Mark Young Anonymous (24)
THE MAHLER SYNDICATE David and Kaye Birks Mary and Frederick Davidson AM Tim and Lyn Edward John and Diana Frew Francis and Robyn Hofmann The Hon Dr Barry Jones AC Dr Paul Nisselle AM Maria Solà The Hon Michael Watt QC and Cecilie Hall
The MSO gratefully acknowledges the support of the following Estates: Angela Beagley Neilma Gantner Gwen Hunt Audrey Jenkins Joan Jones Pauline Marie Johnston Joan Jones C P Kemp Peter Forbes MacLaren Joan Winsome Maslen Lorraine Maxine Meldrum Prof Andrew McCredie Miss Sheila Scotter AM MBE Marion A I H M Spence Molly Stephens Jennifer May Teague Jean Tweedie Herta and Fred B Vogel Dorothy Wood
The MSO relies on your ongoing philanthropic support to sustain our artists, and support access, education, community engagement and more. We invite our suporters to get close to the MSO through a range of special events. The MSO welcomes your support at any level. Donations of $2 and over are tax deductible, and supporters are recognised as follows: $1,000+ (Player) $2,500+ (Associate) $5,000+ (Principal) $10,000+ (Maestro)
$20,000+ (Impresario) $50,000+ (Virtuoso) $100,000+ (Platinum)
The MSO Conductor’s Circle is our bequest program for members who have notified of a planned gift in their Will. Enquiries | P (03) 8646 1551 | E philanthropy@mso.com.au
◊
S ignifies Adopt an MSO Musician supporter
17
SUPPORTERS SUPPORTERS SUPPORTERS Yes! I want to make a difference to the community by supporting the MSO’s Month of Giving.
PARTNERPARTNER PRINCIPALPRINCIPAL PARTNER PRINCIPAL
Name Address
GOVERNMENT PARTNERS GOVERNMENT PARTNERS GOVERNMENT PARTNERS Phone Enclosed is my contribution of: $50 $100 $150 Other
PREMIER PREMIER PARTNERS PREMIER PARTNERS PARTNERS
WE ARE THE SOUND OF OUR CITY.
CREDIT CARD VISA
Mastercard
AMEX
Show your love for MSO.
Please charge in full $
VENUE PARTNER VENUE PARTNER VENUE PARTNER
or
Please charge monthly instalments of $ (number of payments per year)
Cardholder
Card number Expiry Signature ( If you prefer to charge by phone, please contact Garry Stocks on 8646 1551)
At over 100 years old, the MSO has been around for nearly as long as Melbourne. We want to continue to be here for you, and all of Melbourne, year after year, season after season.
MAJOR PARTNERS MAJOR PARTNERS MAJOR PARTNERS
EDUCATION PARTNERS EDUCATION PARTNERS EDUCATION PARTNERS
SUPPORTING PARTNERS SUPPORTING PARTNERS SUPPORTING PARTNERS
Quest Southbank Quest Southbank Quest Southbank
Ernst & Young Bows for Strings Ernst & Young Bows for Strings Ernst & Young Bows for Strings
TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS
CHEQUE ENCLOSED
(payable to Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Pty Ltd)
EFT TO NAB ACCOUNT MSO Fund BSB 083 004 Account 89 393 2381 (include your name and 'Month of Giving'
Donate today mso.com.au/give
in payment description)
ONLINE at mso.com.au/give I am interested in leaving a legacy of wonderful music for years to come:
and Claireand Mackinnon Trust, Sidney Myer MSO Trust Fund e Scobie e andScobie Claire e Mackinnon Trust, Sidney Myer MSO Trust Fund Scobie Claire Mackinnon Trust, Sidney Myer MSO Trust Fund
I have made a gift to the MSO in my Will I would consider including the MSO in my Will and would like more information
MEDIA AND BROADCAST PARTNERS MEDIA AND BROADCAST PARTNERS MEDIA AND BROADCAST PARTNERS
PLEASE RETURN TO MSO’s Month of Giving GPO Box 9994 Melbourne VIC 3001 All gifts over $2 are fully tax-deductible
18
19
19
19