BRAHMS, STRAVINSKY & PRAYER FOR UKRAINE

BRAHMS, STRAVINSKY & PRAYER FOR UKRAINE

Friday, September 29, 2023 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ken-David Masur, conductor

Yefim Bronfman, piano

VALENTIN SILVESTROV/arr. Andreas Gies

Prayer for the Ukraine

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Concerto No. 1 in D minor for Piano, Opus 15

I. Maestoso

II. Adagio

III. Rondo: Allegro non troppo

Yefim Bronfman, piano

IN TERMISSION

IGOR STRAVINSKY

Petrushka (1947 revision)

I. The Shrovetide Fair

II. Petrushka’s Cell

III. The Moor’s Cell

IV. The Shrovetide Fair (Toward Evening)

The MSO Steinway Piano was made possible through a generous gift from MICHAEL AND JEANNE SCHMITZ. The 2023.24 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION

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 at mso.org.

KEN-DAVID MASUR, MUSIC DIRECTOR

Hailed as “fearless, bold, and a life-force” (San Diego UnionTribune) and “a brilliant and commanding conductor with unmistakable charisma” (Leipzig Volkszeitung), Ken-David Masur is celebrating his fifth season as music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony’s Civic Orchestra. He has conducted distinguished orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, l’Orchestre National de France, the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, the National Philharmonic of Russia, and others throughout the United States, France, Germany, Korea, Japan, and Scandinavia.

Masur’s tenure in Milwaukee has been marked by innovative thematic programming, including a festival celebrating the music of the 1930s, when the Bradley Symphony Center was built, and the Water Festival, which highlighted local community partners whose work centers on water conservation and education. He has also instituted a multi-season artist-in-residence program, and he has led highly-acclaimed performances of major choral works, including a semi-staged production of Peer Gynt. This season, he begins a residency with bass-baritone Dashon Burton, and leads the MSO in an inaugural city-wide Bach festival, celebrating the diverse and universal appeal of J.S. Bach’s music in an ever-changing world.

Last season, Masur made his New York Philharmonic debut in a gala program featuring John Williams and Steven Spielberg. He also debuted at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, and at Classical Tahoe in three programs that were broadcast on PBS, and he led the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Branford Marsalis, and James Taylor at Tanglewood in a 90th birthday concert for John Williams. The summer of 2023 marked Masur’s debuts with the Grant Park Festival and the National Repertory Orchestra; later this season, he returns to the Baltimore Symphony and the Kristiansand Symphony.

Previously, Masur was associate conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. During his five seasons there, he led numerous concerts at Symphony Hall and at Tanglewood. For eight years, Masur served as principal guest conductor of the Munich Symphony, and he has also served as associate conductor of the San Diego Symphony and as resident conductor of the San Antonio Symphony.

Music education and working with the next generation of young artists are of major importance to Masur. In addition to his work with Civic Orchestra of Chicago, he has conducted orchestras and led masterclasses at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts, New England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, Boston University, Boston Conservatory, Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan Chamber Orchestra, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and The Juilliard School, where he leads the Juilliard Orchestra this fall.

Masur is passionate about contemporary music and has conducted and commissioned dozens of new works, many of which have premiered at the Chelsea Music Festival, an annual summer festival in New York City founded and directed by Masur and his wife, pianist Melinda Lee Masur. The Festival, which celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2024, has been praised by The New York Times as a “gem of a series” and by TimeOutNY as an “impressive addition to New York’s cultural ecosystem.”

Masur and his family are proud to call Milwaukee their home and enjoy exploring all the riches of the Third Coast.

Photo by Adam DeTour

Guest Artist Biographies

YEFIM BRONFMAN

Internationally recognized as one of today’s most acclaimed and admired pianists, Yefim Bronfman stands among a handful of artists regularly sought by festivals, orchestras, conductors, and recital series. His commanding technique, power, and exceptional lyrical gifts are consistently acknowledged by the press and audiences alike.

Following summer festival appearances in Verbier, Israel, Aspen, Grand Tetons, and Sun Valley, the season begins with a European tour celebrating the auspicious 500th anniversary of the Munich Opera and Orchestra with concerts in Lucerne, Bucharest, London, Paris, Linz, Vienna, and Munich. In partnership with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, together they will visit Japan and Korea, followed in the U.S. by return engagements throughout the season with New York Philharmonic, Boston, Kansas City, National, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, San Francisco symphonies, and Minnesota Orchestra. With the Munich Philharmonic and both Brahms concerti on the program, he will travel to Spain and Carnegie Hall followed by European engagements with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. An extensive winter/spring recital tour will begin in Ljubljana and include Milan, Berlin, Cleveland, Chicago, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, La Jolla, and culminate in Carnegie Hall in early May.

Born in Tashkent in the Soviet Union, Yefim Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973, where he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. In the United States, he studied at The Juilliard School, Marlboro School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music under Rudolf Firkušný, Leon Fleisher, and Rudolf Serkin. A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists, in 2010 he was further honored as the recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane prize in piano performance from Northwestern University and in 2015 with an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music.

Program notes by Elaine Schmidt

VALENTIN SILVESTROV

Born 30 September 1937; Kyiv, Ukraine

Prayer for the Ukraine

First performance: 2014 arrangement for orchestra by Andreas Gies 2 March 2022; Aalborg, Denmark

Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; oboe; 2 clarinets; bassoon; 2 horns; trumpet; timpani; harp; strings

Approximate duration: 6 minutes

Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov is considered a national treasure in his now-embattled homeland. He is part of a long roster of exceptional Ukrainian-born musicians that most of the world has been conditioned to think of as Russian or Soviet rather than Ukrainian. That roster includes composer Sergei Prokofiev, violinist, violist, and conductor David Oistrakh, violinist Nathan Milstein, and violinist Isaac Stern, to name just a few. Conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, the first American-born conductor to lead a major orchestra, was born to parents who emigrated to the U.S. from Ukraine.

Silvestrov is no stranger to political strife in his homeland. He wrestled with government controls and restrictions on composers during the Soviet era and was expelled from the Ukrainian Union of Composers after taking part in protests in 1970. His music began to change after 1970, moving away from what The New York Times has referred to as “noisy scores” to a much softer, gentler style of writing that many have called “consoling.”

Silvestrov wrote his hauntingly beautiful, fluid Prayer for Ukraine following the 2013 Maidan Uprising in his hometown of Kyiv and the strife that followed. The protests began on November 21 of that year and continued in waves in Kyiv’s Independence Square, eventually escalating to an encampment of thousands of protesters barricading themselves in the square. The Maidan Uprising led to the 2014 “Revolution of Dignity” and eventually resulted in the ouster of proRussia Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych, who wanted to forge a closer relationship with Russia rather than sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement.

Silvestrov originally wrote Prayer for Ukraine for a cappella chorus as the 13th movement of a series of songs for chorus, entitled Maidan 2014. Five of the piece’s movements were arrangements of the Ukrainian national anthem.

Silvestrov, now 86 years old, fled Kyiv in March 2022, making his way out of Ukraine, through Poland, and into Germany by bus. He is currently living and writing music in Berlin. His Prayer for Ukraine has become an anthem of solidarity with Ukraine through performances around the world.

MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

JOHANNES BRAHMS

Born 17 May 1833; Hamburg, Germany

Died 3 April 1897; Vienna, Austria

Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Opus 15

First performance: 22 January 1859; Hanover, Germany

Last MSO performance: 25 January 2014; Edo de Waart, conductor; Inon Barnatan, piano

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; timpani; strings

Approximate duration: 44 minutes

We tend to picture German composer and pianist Johannes Brahms as he appeared in middle age — portly, serious, and due for a haircut and beard trim. But an early photo of him gives a glimpse of the shy, 20-year-old pianist and composer who ramped up his courage and presented himself to the reigning royalty of the classical music world at the time: Robert and Clara Schumann.

The year was 1853 and the Schumanns, who were experiencing some of the last happiness they would know together, were so impressed with Brahms that they invited him to stay in their home for a time. Early the following year, Robert would attempt suicide and would be committed to an asylum. Brahms, by then close to both Robert and Clara, would hurry to provide help and support to Clara and the Schumann children, beginning a complex relationship with her that still has historians wondering about it today.

It was during this time that Brahms began his Piano Concerto No. 1, although he did not yet understand that he was writing a concerto. The piece began as a duet for two pianos, which he and Clara played quite frequently. Thinking it needed more power and color than two pianos could provide, he decided to turn it into his first symphony. But haunted by Robert’s words about being Beethoven’s successor, he decided he was not ready to write a symphony and turned the piece into a piano concerto, completing it in 1858. The 1859 premiere, with a 25-yearold Brahms at the piano, received a dismal reception at its first two performances. The third performance, with a different soloist and some adjustments to the music, was a success. The piece is still viewed and heard with awe today.

The mercurial first movement opens with big, bold sounds, moving to some espressivo writing before resuming the force of the opening. The second movement, which he wrote was a “gentle portrait” of Clara, could hardly be more of a contrast to the first movement in character and sound. Many musicologists see ties between the character-filled third movement and the finale of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

IGOR STRAVINSKY

Born 17 June 1882; Saint Petersburg, Russia

Died 6 April 1971; New York City, United States

Petrushka (1947 revision)

First performance: 13 June 1911; Paris, France (original premiere)

Last MSO performance: 1 March 2014; Edo de Waart, conductor

Instrumentation: 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes; English horn; 3 clarinets (3rd doubling on bass clarinet); 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, bass drum with attached cymbals, cymbals, snare drum, suspended cymbals, tam tam, tambourine, triangle, xylophone); harp; celeste; piano; strings

Approximate duration: 34 minutes

Hearing the music of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, it can be a little difficult to remember that he was once a student of Rimsky-Korsakov and that he admired Tchaikovsky quite deeply. It seems rather a long road from those two composers to the infamous melee at the 1913 premiere of his Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) in Paris. Stravinsky, who eventually held citizenships in France and the United States, was in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1910, supposedly working on Le sacre du printemps, which was slated to be his next collaboration with the Parisbased Ballets Russes impresario Serge Diaghilev, when the great impresario paid him a visit to see how the ballet was coming along. One can easily imagine Diaghilev’s surprise when Stravinsky announced he had experienced a vision of his next orchestral piece and was working on that instead of the ballet. Diaghilev gave a listen to the completed portion of the piece and thought there was a ballet lurking within it. And thus, Petrushka was born.

With Petrushka, Stravinsky pushed away from the music he had studied and admired, finding his extremely unique voice. From form and use of rhythm to tonality and orchestral colors, this was the introduction of the Stravinsky we know so well today. In fact, the chord (two major chords a tritone apart) which serves as a leitmotif for the Petrushka character was new to listeners and is still known to this day as “the Petrushka chord.” The success of the ballet, with its story about a puppet that comes to life briefly before succumbing to the consequences of his love, rage, and jealousy, and its root in Russian folk music, also gave him the confidence and momentum to finish his famous/infamous Le sacre du printemps. Legendary dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, who would be featured in Le sacre du printemps a year later, danced the title role in the Petrushka premiere. Stravinsky revisited Petrushka in 1946, making alterations to the orchestration and tempos, shaping the work for concert presentation, and expanding some of the piano part to create what is known as “the 1947 version.”

MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

2023.24 SEASON

KEN-DAVID MASUR

Music Director

Polly and Bill Van Dyke

Music Director Chair

EDO DE WAART

Music Director Laureate

RYAN TANI

Assistant Conductor

CHERYL FRAZES HILL

Chorus Director

Margaret Hawkins Chorus Director Chair

TIMOTHY J. BENSON

Assistant Chorus Director

FIRST VIOLINS

Jinwoo Lee, Concertmaster, Charles and Marie Caestecker

Concertmaster Chair

Ilana Setapen, First Associate Concertmaster

Jeanyi Kim, Associate Concertmaster

Alexander Ayers

Yuka Kadota

Elliot Lee**

Ji-Yeon Lee**

Dylana Leung

Allison Lovera

Lijia Phang

Yuanhui Fiona Zheng

SECOND VIOLINS

Jennifer Startt, Principal, Andrea and Woodrow Leung Second Violin Chair

Timothy Klabunde, Assistant Principal

John Bian, Assistant Principal (3rd Chair)

Glenn Asch

Lisa Johnson Fuller

Paul Hauer

Hyewon Kim

Alejandra Switala**

Mary Terranova

VIOLAS

Robert Levine, Principal, Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Principal Viola Chair

Georgi Dimitrov, Assistant Principal (2nd chair), Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri Viola Chair

Samantha Rodriguez, Assistant Principal (3rd chair)*

Alejandro Duque, Acting Assistant Principal (3rd Chair)

Elizabeth Breslin

Nathan Hackett

Erin H. Pipal

Helen Reich

CELLOS

Susan Babini, Principal, Dorothea C. Mayer Cello Chair

Nicholas Mariscal, Assistant Principal *

Scott Tisdel, Associate Principal Emeritus

Madeleine Kabat

Shinae Ra

Peter Szczepanek

Peter J. Thomas

Adrien Zitoun

BASSES

Jon McCullough-Benner, Principal, Donald B. Abert Bass Chair *

Andrew Raciti, Associate Principal

Nash Tomey, Assistant Principal (3rd Chair)

Brittany Conrad

Teddy Gabrieledes **

Peter Hatch *

Paris Myers

HARP

Julia Coronelli, Principal, Walter Schroeder Harp Chair

FLUTES

Sonora Slocum, Principal, Margaret and Roy Butter Flute Chair

Heather Zinninger, Assistant Principal

Jennifer Bouton Schaub

PICCOLO

Jennifer Bouton Schaub

OBOES

Katherine Young Steele, Principal, Milwaukee Symphony League Oboe Chair

Kevin Pearl, Assistant Principal

Margaret Butler

ENGLISH HORN

Margaret Butler, Philip and Beatrice Blank English Horn Chair in memoriam to John Martin

CLARINETS

Todd Levy, Principal, Franklyn Esenberg Clarinet Chair

Benjamin Adler, Assistant Principal, Donald and Ruth P. Taylor Assistant Principal Clarinet Chair *

Taylor Eiffert*

Madison Freed**

E-FLAT CLARINET

Benjamin Adler *

BASS CLARINET

Taylor Eiffert*

Madison Freed **

BASSOONS

Catherine Van Handel, Principal, Muriel C. and John D. Silbar Family Bassoon Chair

Rudi Heinrich, Assistant Principal

Beth W. Giacobassi

CONTRABASSOON

Beth W. Giacobassi

HORNS

Matthew Annin, Principal, Krause Family French Horn Chair

Krystof Pipal, Associate Principal

Dietrich Hemann, Andy Nunemaker

French Horn Chair

Darcy Hamlin

Kelsey Williams**

TRUMPETS

Matthew Ernst, Principal, Walter L. Robb Family Trumpet Chair

David Cohen, Associate Principal, Martin J. Krebs Associate Principal

Trumpet Chair

Alan Campbell, Fred Fuller

Trumpet Chair

TROMBONES

Megumi Kanda, Principal, Marjorie Tiefenthaler

Trombone Chair

Kirk Ferguson, Assistant Principal

BASS TROMBONE

John Thevenet, Richard M. Kimball

Bass Trombone Chair

TUBA

Robyn Black, Principal

TIMPANI

Dean Borghesani, Principal

Chris Riggs, Assistant Principal

PERCUSSION

Robert Klieger, Principal

Chris Riggs

PIANO

Melitta S. Pick Endowed Piano Chair

PERSONNEL MANAGERS

Françoise Moquin, Director of Orchestra Personnel

Constance Aguocha, Assistant Personnel Manager

LIBRARIANS

Paul Beck, Principal Librarian, Anonymous Donor, Principal Librarian Chair

Matthew Geise, Assistant Librarian & Media Archivist

PRODUCTION

Tristan Wallace, Technical Manager & Live Audio Supervisor

Paolo Scarabel, Stage Technician & Deck Supervisor

* Leave of Absence 2023.24 Season

** Acting member of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra 2023.24 Season