BRAHMS'S SECOND PIANO CONCERTO

Friday, May 13, 2022 at 11:15 am

Saturday, May 14, 2022 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ruth Reinhardt, conductor

Alessio Bax, piano

PROGRAM

LOTTA WENNÄKOSKI / Flounce

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK / Symphony No. 5 in F major, Opus 76 [formerly No. 3, Opus 24] • I. Allegro ma non troppo • II. Andante con moto • III. Scherzo: Allegro scherzando • IV. Finale: Allegro molto

INTERMISSION

JOHANNES BRAHMS / Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Opus 83 • I. Allegro non troppo • II. Allegro appassionato • III. Andante • IV. Allegretto grazioso • Alessio Bax, piano

The MSO Steinway piano was made possible through a generous gift from MICHAEL AND JEANNE SCHMITZ. The 2021.22 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND.

The length of this concert is approximately 2 hours.

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra can be heard on Telarc, Koss Classics, Pro Arte, AVIE, and Vox/Turnabout recordings. MSO Classics recordings (digital only) available on iTunes and at mso.org. MSO Binaural recordings (digital only) available at mso.org.

Guest Artist Biographies

Ruth Reinhardt, conductor

Ruth Reinhardt is quickly establishing herself as one of today’s most dynamic and nuanced young conductors, building a reputation for her musical intelligence, programmatic imagination, and elegant performances.

In the 2021.22 season, Reinhardt makes U.S. debuts with the symphony orchestras of Naples, Portland, Milwaukee, and San Francisco, culminating in summer festival debuts at Blossom Music Center and Wolf Trap. She will also return to Seattle, Indianapolis, North Carolina, and San Diego symphonies, Orquestra Simfónica de Barcelona, and Helsingborg Symphony, among others.

Highlights of Reinhardt’s recent seasons include debuts with the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Baltimore, Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Omaha, Orlando, Portland, Sarasota, and Grand Rapids, as well as the Los Angeles and St. Paul chamber orchestras. In Europe, debuts include the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Gävle Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Grosses Orchester Graz, and Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra. In the summers of 2018 and 2019, she served as the assistant conductor of the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra.

Reinhardt received her master’s degree in conducting from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Alan Gilbert. Born in Saarbrücken, Germany, she began studying violin at an early age and sang in the children’s chorus of Saarländisches Staatstheater, Saarbrücken’s opera company. She attended Zurich’s University of the Arts to study violin with Rudolf Koelman, and began conducting studies with Constantin Trinks, with additional training under Johannes Schlaefli. Prior to her appointment in Dallas, Reinhardt was a Dudamel Fellow of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducting fellow at the Seattle Symphony and Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Music Center, and an associate conducting fellow of the Taki Concordia program.

A precocious talent, by age 17, she had already composed and conducted an opera for and performed by the children and youths of her hometown. While studying in Zurich, she also conducted the premieres of two chamber operas for children. Other opera productions she has conducted include Dvořák’s Rusalka and Weber’s Der Freischütz for the North Czech Opera Company and Strauss’s Die Fledermaus at the Leipzig University of the Arts.

Alessia Bax, piano

Combining exceptional lyricism and insight with consummate technique, Alessio Bax is without a doubt “among the most remarkable young pianists now before the public” (Gramophone). He catapulted to prominence with First Prize wins at both the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions, and is now a familiar face on five continents, not only as a recitalist and chamber musician, but also as a concerto soloist who has appeared with more than 150 orchestras, including the London, Royal, and St. Petersburg philharmonic orchestras, the Boston, Dallas, Cincinnati, Sydney, and City of Birmingham symphony orchestras, and the NHK Symphony in Japan, collaborating with such eminent conductors as Marin Alsop, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, Yuri Temirkanov, and Jaap van Zweden.

Bax constantly explores many facets of his career. He released his eleventh Signum Classics album, Italian Inspirations, whose program was also the vehicle for his solo recital debut at New York’s 92nd Street Y as well as on tour. He recently embarked on a trio tour of Spain with violinist Joshua Bell and cellist Steven Isserlis. Bax and his regular piano duo partner, Lucille Chung, gave recitals at New York’s Lincoln Center and were featured with the St. Louis Symphony and Stéphane Denève. He has also presented the complete works of Beethoven for cello and piano with cellist Paul Watkins in New York City.

This season he will make his debut with the Milwaukee Symphony, performing Brahms’s second piano concerto and will return for the fourth time for two recitals at the historic Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. This summer is highlighted by his fifth season as artistic director of Tuscany’s Incontri in Terra di Siena festival, as well as return appearances at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival and at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival with the Dallas Symphony and Fabio Luisi conducting.

Bax revisited Mozart’s K. 491 and K. 595 concertos, as heard on Alessio Bax Plays Mozart, for his recent debuts with the Boston and Melbourne symphonies, both with Sir Andrew Davis, and with the Sydney Symphony, which he led himself from the keyboard. Other recent highlights include the pianist’s Auckland Philharmonia debut, concerts in Israel, a Japanese tour featuring dates with the Tokyo Symphony, a high-profile U.S. tour with Berlin Philharmonic principal flutist Emmanuel Pahud, and an Asian tour with Berlin Philharmonic First Concertmaster Daishin Kashimoto.

Program notes by J. Mark Baker

German-born conductor Ruth Reinhardt makes her MSO debut this weekend, leading music both familiar (Dvořák and Brahms) and new (Wennäkoski). We are also pleased to welcome pianist Alessio Bax, the soloist in Brahms’s mighty Opus 83.

Lotta Wennäkoski

Lotta Wennäkoski

Born 8 February 1970; Helsinki, Finland

Flounce

Composed: 2017 • First performance: 9 September 2017; London, England • Last MSO performance: MSO premiere • Instrumentation: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes (2nd doubling English horn); 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; bassoon; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; trombone; bass trombone; tuba; percussion (bass bow, bass drum, cowbell, crotale, cymbals, gong, guiro, rainstick, slide whistle, temple blocks, triangle, vibraphone, vibraslap, xylophone); harp; strings • Approximate duration: 5 minutes

Helsinki-born Lotta Wennäkoski studied violin, music theory, and Hungarian folk music at Budapest’s Béla Bartók Conservatory. She continued her education at the Sibelius Academy in her native city. Wennäkoski began her career as a composer by writing music for short films and incidental music for radio plays. Several high-profile commissions brought her to the attention of a larger public. Variously typified as a lyricist, a lyrical modernist, and a post-Expressionist, Wennäkoski has described herself as “often navigating in an area between exciting timbral qualities and more conventional gestures like melodic fragments.”

Flounce was written on a commission from BBC Radio 3. The composer has provided the following comments:

Sometimes it is the title that starts to guide the musical ideas of a work in the making. This was more or less the case with the short orchestral piece Flounce, written in spring 2017. I was fascinated by the different meanings of the English word “flounce” – both the verb and the noun. The piece is thus largely characterized by brisk gestures “non troppo serioso” [not too serious], but it also has passages of lace-like ornamenting in a more lightweight and lyrical mood. The same kind of duality is present in the way I’m aiming to combine an often-energetic pulse with (sometimes non-conventional) timbral ideas and a feeling of space in the orchestration.

Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvořák

Born 8 September 1841; Nelahozeves, Bohemia • Died 1 May 1904; Prague, Bohemia

Symphony No. 5 in F major, Opus 76 [formerly No. 3, Opus 24]

Composed: 1875 • First performance: 25 March 1879; Prague, Bohemia • Last MSO performance: June 2001; Janos Fürst, conductor • Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets (2nd doubling bass clarinet); 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; timpani; percussion (triangle); strings • Approximate duration: 36 minutes

We wouldn’t be far off the mark if we called Antonín Dvořák the most versatile composer of the Romantic era. The Czech master’s list of works includes operas, chamber music, choral music and songs, symphonies, concertos, tone poems, and other orchestral music.

In early 1875, the 33-year-old composer was buoyed after winning the Austrian State Stipendium, established to aid struggling young artists. (Brahms, who later became one of Dvořák’s staunchest advocates, was among the adjudicators.) The result was fecund rush of new works: the Serenade for Strings, Opus 22; the Nocturne for Strings, Opus 40; several chamber pieces; and the Symphony No. 5 (first published in 1888 as Symphony No. 3, Opus 24), which the composer set down in only a few weeks’ time – between 15 June and 23 July. The latter shows a great stride forward, surpassing anything he had written previously.

The words “pastoral” and “bucolic” are often used to describe the opening movement. Like Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, it is set in F major. As an introduction, clarinets – then flutes – play an elemental arpeggio motive that leads to a new “grandioso” theme for full orchestra, brilliantly colored by the brass. Three rising and falling phrases, with mellifluous syncopations, constitute the second subject. The two melodies alternate gently – interrupted by fortissimo exclamations. A minor-key statement from the horns, then trombones, is the final building block from which Dvořák constructs this radiant Allegro.

A melancholy theme from the cellos opens the A minor slow movement. The violins soon take up the melody, which is then relayed from one instrument to another. Notice how both melody and accompaniment are sourced from the same motive. Cast in ternary form, the middle section is set in A major. The scherzo follows on without a pause. Rife with charming melodies and rich harmonies, it is set in B-flat major. Its D-flat major trio has a main theme that is a slight variation of the previous movement’s B section.

In the finale, Dvořák borrows an idea from Beethoven and Schubert: he begins in the “wrong key” (A minor, in this instance). This increases the dramatic impact we feel when, more than 50 bars later, the tonic (F major) finally makes it appearance. At the very end, a salvo from the trumpets transforms the movement’s opening theme into a fanfare. Simultaneously, the trombones roar out the clarinet motive from the symphony’s beginning bars, as Dvořák’s Opus 76 concludes in blazing exultation.

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Born 7 May 1833; Hamburg, Germany • Died 3 April 1897; Vienna, Austria

Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Opus 83

Composed: 1878-1881 • First performance: 9 November 1881; Budapest, Hungary • Last MSO performance: September 2016; Edo de Waart, conductor; Emanuel Ax, piano • Instrumentation: 2 flutes (1st doubling piccolo); 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; timpani; strings • Approximate duration: 44 minutes

Honored Master, I beg you to forgive my delay in thanking you for so kindly sending me your Concerto. Frankly speaking, at the first reading this work seemed to me a little gray in tone; I have, however, gradually come to understand it. It possesses the pregnant character of a distinguished work of art, in which thought and feeling move in noble harmony. With sincerest esteem, most devotedly, Franz Liszt

Brahms made his first sketches of the Piano Concerto No. 2 in the spring of 1878, following his first trip to Italy. He put it on the back burner, though, to work on the Violin Concerto, Opus 77. It wasn’t until the summer of 1881, following a second trip to Italy, that the honored master completed the concerto – in the village of Pressbaum, near Vienna. The work was premiered in Budapest on 9 November of that year, with the composer as soloist.

Chronologically, Brahms’s Opus 83 falls between the second and third symphonies. It dates from about the same time as the Academic Festival Overture, Tragic Overture, Violin Sonata No. 1, Piano Trio No. 2, the piano works of Opus 76 and Opus 79, and the choral/orchestral Nänie, Opus 82. In other words, the second piano concerto finds the 48-year-old composer at the height of his creative powers, celebrating previously undreamed-of accomplishments. Brahms dedicated the concerto to Eduard Marxsen, his piano teacher during his childhood days in Hamburg. As boys, both Johannes and Fritz Brahms had taken lessons from Marxsen, who – recognizing the family’s financial straits – never charged them for his services.

Brahms chose an unconventional four-movement structure that enlarges the piece to symphonic dimensions. (In a letter to his friend Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, Brahms coyly referred to Opus 83, one of the most sizable works in the concert pianist’s repertoire, as “a tiny little concerto with a wisp of a scherzo.”) A solo horn opens the lengthy first movement, followed by a cadenza for the soloist that leads to the Allegro non troppo’s exposition. The stormy development segues to the final statement of the opening theme, with a brilliant maestoso coda.

The Allegro appassionato is the aforementioned scherzo, set in D minor. This “wisp” is fiery and tragic, though, not the playful joke we might expect; a brief trio in D major offsets the movement’s overall darkly passionate aesthetic. Following all this fervor, the serenity of the Andante, back in the friendly home key of B-flat major, is made all the more telling. The cello’s tender solo calls to mind the melody of a song Brahms would write several years later, “Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer” (Ever softer grows my slumber); the piano expands on this in a quiet solo passage. Although the central section is more restless, the overall effect of the movement is of quiet introspection. In form, the cheerful B-flat major Allegretto grazioso is a rondo. It is indeed graceful, but quickly evolves into lively virtuoso passages for the soloist. There are no trumpets and drums here, there is no sturm und drang, only youthful energy and ease, with the piano and orchestra sharing equally in the rousing, radiant conclusion.