BACH FEST I: BRANDENBURG

Friday, March 22, 2024 at 7:30 pmSaturday, March 23, 2024 at 2:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ken-David Masur, conductorMahan Esfahani, harpsichord & leaderRachell Ellen Wong, violin & leader

Program

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACHConcerto No. 2 in E major for Violin and String Orchestra, BWV 1042I. AllegroII. AdagioIII. Allegro assaiRachell Ellen Wong, violin & leader

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACHBrandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major, BWV 1050I. AllegroII. AffettuosoIII. AllegroMahan Esfahani, harpsichord & leaderRachell Ellen Wong, violinSonora Slocum, flute

INTERMISSION

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACHBrandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major, BWV 1046I. [No tempo indication]II. AdagioIII. AllegroIV. MenuettoMahan Esfahani, harpsichord & leaderIlana Setapen, violin

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACHSuite No. 3 in D major for Orchestra, BWV 1068I. OvertureII. AirIII. Gavotte I — Gavotte IIIV. BourréeV. Gigue

The 2023.24 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION. The Bach Festival is sponsored by the WE ENERGIES FOUNDATION and the SCHOENLEBER FOUNDATION.

The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Guest Artist Biographies

MAHAN ESFAHANI

Mahan Esfahani has made it his life’s mission to rehabilitate the harpsichord in the mainstream of concert instruments, and to that end, his creative programming and work in commissioning new works have drawn the attention of critics and audiences across Europe, Asia, and North America. He was the first and only harpsichordist to be a BBC New Generation Artist (2008-2010), a Borletti-Buitoni prize winner (2009), and a nominee for Gramophone’s Artist of the Year (2014, 2015, and 2017). In 2022, he became the youngest recipient of the Wigmore Medal, in recognition of his significant contribution and longstanding relationship with Wigmore Hall.

His work for the harpsichord has resulted in recitals in most of the major series and concert halls, among them London’s Wigmore Hall and Barbican Centre, Oji Hall in Tokyo, the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, Shanghai Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall in NYC, Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Recital Centre, Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Berlin Konzerthaus, Zürich Tonhalle, Wiener Konzerthaus, San Francisco Performances, the 92nd Street Y, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Cologne Philharmonie, Edinburgh International Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Madrid’s Fundación Juan March, Bergen Festival, Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Al Bustan Festival in Beirut, Jerusalem Arts Festival, and the Leipzig Bach Festival, and concerto appearances with the Chicago Symphony, Ensemble Modern, BBC Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia, Czech Radio Symphony, Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra, Malta Philharmonic, Orchestra La Scintilla, Aarhus Symphony, Montreal’s Les Violons du Roy, Hamburg Symphony, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, with whom he was an artistic partner for 2016-2018. His richly-varied discography includes seven critically-acclaimed recordings for Hyperion and Deutsche Grammophon — garnering one Gramophone award, two BBC Music Magazine awards, a Diapason d’Or and “Choc de Classica” in France, and two ICMAs.

Esfahani studied musicology and history at Stanford University, where he first came into contact with the harpsichord in the class of Elaine Thornburgh. Following his decision to abandon the law for music, he studied harpsichord privately in Boston with Peter Watchorn before completing his education under the celebrated Czech harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková. Following a three-year stint as artist-in-residence at New College, Oxford, he continues his academic associations as an honorary member at Keble College, Oxford, and as professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He can be frequently heard as a commentator on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 and as a host for such programs as Record Review, Building a Library, and Sunday Feature, as well as in live programs with the popular mathematician and presenter Marcus du Sautoy; for the BBC’s Sunday Feature, he is currently at work on his fourth radio documentary following two popular programs on such subjects as the early history of African-American composers in the classical sphere and the development of orchestral music in Azerbaijan. Born in Tehran in 1984 and raised in the United States, he lived in Milan and then London for several years before taking up residence in Prague.

RACHELL ELLEN WONG

Violinist Rachell Ellen Wong made history in 2020 when she was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, becoming the only Baroque artist in the program’s history to receive the honor. A star on both the modern and historical performance violin stages, she is also the Grand Prize winner of the inaugural Lillian and Maurice Barbash J.S. Bach Competition. With performances across five continents, Wong has established herself as one of the leading historical performers of her generation, collaborating with esteemed ensembles such as the Academy of Ancient Music, Jupiter Ensemble led by lutenist Thomas Dunford, Bach Collegium Japan, Ruckus Early Music, and Les Arts Florissants, among others. Equally accomplished on the modern violin, Wong made her first public appearance with Philharmonia Northwest at age 11 and has since performed as a soloist with orchestras such as Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Panamá, Orquesta Sinfónica de Costa Rica, and the Seattle Symphony. In 2020, Wong made her conducting debut with the Seattle Symphony, leading a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons from the violin. Currently, she serves as concertmaster of the Seattle Baroque Orchestra.

Notable concerto performances from Wong’s 2023.24 season include appearances with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony, Reno Chamber Orchestra, and the Northwest Sinfonietta. Highlights from last season included performances of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the Auburn Symphony (WA), Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Richmond Symphony (IN), Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy with the American Classical Orchestra (NYC), as well as debuts for UC Berkeley’s Cal Performances, the Edinburgh Music Festival, the Washington Bach Consort in D.C., and a recital for the Starling-DeLay Symposium at The Juilliard School. Additionally, Wong is a faculty member at the Valley of the Moon Music Festival in Sonoma, California, and an American Fellow of The English Concert.

Alongside acclaimed keyboardist David Belkovski, Wong is co-founder of Twelfth Night. Founded in 2021, Twelfth Night’s notable engagements include Music Before 1800, Reno’s Apex Concert Series, Arizona Early Music, and Chatham Baroque. The ensemble is set to make its Carnegie Hall debut during the 2023.24 season.

Wong holds a Master of Music in historical performance from The Juilliard School, where she was a Kovner Fellowship recipient. She also holds a Master of Music degree from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she divides her time between New York City and Seattle. Wong performs on a baroque violin from the school of Joachim Tielke circa 1700, as well as a violin made by Carlo de March in 1953. Her exceptional blend of technical virtuosity, expressive musicianship, and deep understanding of period performance practices has garnered critical acclaim and a dedicated following.

Program notes by Elaine Schmidt

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Born 31 March 1685; Eisenach, GermanyDied 28 July 1750; Leipzig, Germany

BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS

In 1985, Johann Sebastian Bach’s fame was such that church bells around the world rang at noon on his 300th birthday. But in the years following his death in 1750, most of Bach’s music and even his name were largely forgotten. The vast majority of his music had been written to be played just once, and only a tiny bit of it had been published during his lifetime. In 1823 or 1824, young Felix Mendelssohn’s grandmother gave him a copyist’s version of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion as a birthday gift. Transfixed by the work, he later used it to reintroduce the name and music of Bach to the world.Thank you, Felix.

Bach’s six Brandenburg concertos were something of a musical resume, or job application of sorts. He sent them to the Margrave of Brandenburg (a title used mostly by princes), in part at the request of the Margrave and in part, or so it seems, in hopes of landing a job. Bach had met the Margrave in 1719 while he was in Berlin to purchase a harpsichord on behalf of his employer at the time, the Prince of Anhalt-Köthen. He apparently played for the Margrave on this trip. The Margrave, impressed by Bach, asked him to send some music. About two years later, Bach got around to honoring that request. Bach was looking for a new position, so sending music to a member of the nobility who had been impressed when he heard his playing must have seemed like a good idea.

Unfortunately, it would seem that Bach did not think the situation all the way through. He sent the Margrave a newly reworked version of what we now call the Brandenburg Concertos. Each piece was actually a concerto grosso, meaning a concerto that featured a group of soloists instead of a single player. The flaw in this plan lay in the fact that over the course of the six pieces, Bach included a violino piccolo, which was a bit of an oddity, even in 1719, wrote some virtuoso horn parts at a time when horns were rather new in orchestras, wrote a terrifically difficult trumpet solo, and made other instrumental requirements the Margrave would be hard-pressed to meet in order to have the pieces performed. Bach included a note asking for employment.

The Margrave never acknowledged receiving pieces or the note and never heard the concertos performed. The pieces may not have landed Bach a new gig, but they did advance the development of the concerto significantly, in part through the creative instrumentation and variety of different sounds Bach created in them, and in part through the inventive structures of the six pieces — no two are alike. Although the pieces failed to land Bach a new job, they are widely regarded today at some of the finest concertos of the Baroque era. The autograph copy of the six Brandenburg concertos was very nearly lost to the world during World War II. The concertos were on a train, having been removed from the Berlin library where they were housed to keep them safe from Allied bombing raids. When the train itself came under aerial attack, a librarian fled into the nearby woods, clutching the manuscript under his coat.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major, BWV 1050 (Friday evening/Saturday afternoon)

Composed: Unknown; earliest arrangement dates from 1720-1721First performance: Unknown; collection dedicated on 24 March 1721Last MSO performance: 24 October 1982; Lukas Foss, conductor and piano; Edward Mumm, violin; Glenda Lathrop, fluteInstrumentation: flute; harpsichord; stringsApproximate duration: 21 minutes

The fifth of Bach’s six Brandenburg concertos stands out for its virtuosic use of the harpsichord. History tells us that Bach was a phenomenal improviser at the keyboard. In Bach’s day, a musician was not considered complete, or “finished,” without being able to improvise fluidly. Even in a time when improvising skills were a given, Bach’s improvising was astonishing. Legendary jazz pianist George Shearing, who improvised on themes by Bach at a concert in New York City celebrating the composer’s 300th birthday in 1985, commented afterwards that if Bach had been alive in modern times, he would have been “one hell of a jazzer.”

Most historians believe the harpsichord writing in the fifth Brandenburg is a transcription of an improvisation by Bach. Some add that it is likely very similar to what he played for the Margrave two years prior to sending him the six Brandenburg concertos, and that he included it to remind the Margrave how impressed he had been with Bach at that encounter. Bach was hoping for a job, after all. Whatever the case, the harpsichord writing in this piece certainly gives us a glimpse of Bach’s incredible keyboard prowess.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major, BWV 1046 (Friday evening/Saturday afternoon)

Composed: Unknown; possibly as early as 1713First performance: Unknown; collection dedicated on 24 March 1721Last MSO performance: 2 April 2000; Nicholas McGegan, conductor; Frank Almond, violinInstrumentation: 3 oboes; bassoon; 2 horns; harpsichord; stringsApproximate duration: 21 minutes

The first of Bach’s Brandenburg concertos, and the only one of the set of six concertos that is built of four movements, features a solo violin, two horns, three oboes, and a bassoon, along with strings and harpsichord. The piece has its roots in the opening section of Bach’s “Hunt” cantata. Written in 1713, the cantata is quite famous today for the aria “Sheep May Safely Graze,” which has taken on a life of its own as a wedding processional.

The first movement presents what might be a conversation, or perhaps an argument, between sections of instruments. The second movement finds the oboe playing a melody that unfolds like an engrossing story. The third movement places the solo violin in the spotlight, while the final movement is built of what amount to dance vignettes.

Concerto No. 2 in E major for Violin and String Orchestra, BWV 1042 (Friday evening/Saturday afternoon)

Composed: Unknown; possibly between 1717-23 in KöthenFirst performance: UnknownLast MSO performance: 22 September 2002; Andreas Delfs, conductor; Hilary Hahn, violinInstrumentation: harpsichord; stringsApproximate duration: 19 minutes

We know very little about the history of Bach’s Violin Concertos No. 1 and No. 2. We know Bach wrote out the parts for the first concerto after moving to Leipzig, but we do not know where, when, or why he wrote the two concertos. Bach was a fine violinist and often conducted while playing violin. He owned a Stainer violin — a brand more popular than Stradivarius violins at the time. We don’t even know which concerto he wrote first. The numbers are perfectly arbitrary.

We do know that while Bach was in Leipzig, he made new versions of both of the violin concertos, changing the solo instrument to harpsichord. He did this in 1730 for the Collegium Musicum he led at the St. Thomas School. But this tells us nothing other than that the violin concertos were written before 1730. Some historians think that the second of the concertos, or at least the one that is called No. 2, bears a resemblance in tone and energy to the Brandenburg Concertos that Bach wrote in Köthen. Unfortunately, there is nothing conclusive there either. Happily, we do know that Bach wrote both concertos. So there’s really only one thing to do now: sit back, enjoy the music, and relish the fact that both concertos have survived the 300-odd years since Bach wrote them.

Suite No. 3 in D major for Orchestra, BWV 1068 (Friday evening/Saturday afternoon)

Composed: Unknown; earliest known autograph score dates from 1730First performance: UnknownLast MSO performance: 10 April 2004; Nicholas McGegan, conductorInstrumentation: 2 oboes; 3 trumpets; timpani; harpsichord; stringsApproximate duration: 20 minutes

One of the most interesting things about Bach’s orchestral suites is the small number of them that he is known to have composed. He wrote four suites over the course of several years, numbering them 1– 4 at some point. Historians do not believe they were written as a set or ever intended as a set. Bach wrote a handful of other suites as well, but that’s the interesting thing — he wrote just a handful of suites, while other composers were churning out copious numbers of them. The 135 of Georg Philipp Telemann’s suites that have survived to the present day are just the tip of the iceberg for him. He is known to have written many more than that. Many composers of the era wrote dozens, in some cases hundreds, of such suites. But Bach wrote just a handful beyond the four previously mentioned.

Bach referred to his orchestral suites as “Ouvertures,” the term many musicians used for such pieces in his day. The word comes from the fact that the suites all began with a French overture, which was really a style of overture borrowed from French opera. A French overture opens with a slow section, built of dotted rhythms, before moving to a fast section, after which the slow opening material returns. The rest of the suite, or “ouverture,” consists of dance movements. The small number of orchestral suites written by Bach may be one of the most interesting things about this suite, written in D major, but the hands-down, most interesting thing about it is that it contains what may well be the most famous 18 measures of Baroque-era music: Bach’s “Air on the G String.” Although the term “G string” has taken on a rather different meaning in the modern era than it had in the Baroque era, back then the term referred simply to the string on the violin that was tuned to G. The English term “air” is related to the Italian term “aria.” An air is a song, or a very lyrical piece of instrumental music. Nested in the dance movements of an orchestral suite, the lyrical air is a delightful, transporting surprise.