GOOSBY PLAYS MENDELSSOHN

Friday, February 23, 2024 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, February 24, 2024 at 7:30 pm

Sunday, February 25, 2024 at 2:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Christian Reif, conductor

Randall Goosby, violin

PROGRAM

DORA PEJAČEVIĆ

Overture in D minor, Opus 49

FELIX MENDELSSOHN

Concerto in E minor for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 64

I. Allegro molto appassionato

II. Andante

III. Allegretto non troppo – Allegro molto vivace

Randall Goosby, violin

INTERMISSION

BÉLA BARTÓK

Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123

I. Introduzione: Andante non troppo – Allegro vivace

II. Giuoco delle coppie: Allegretto scherzando

III. Elegia: Andante non troppo

IV. Intermezzo interrotto: Allegretto

V. Finale: Pesante – Presto

The 2023.24 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION

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

Guest Artist Biographies

Christian Reif

Chief conductor of the Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Christian Reif has established a reputation for his natural musicality, innovative programming, and technical command. The 2023.24 season marks Reif’s inaugural season as chief conductor, a position he will hold through the 2025.26 season. Since 2022, Reif has served as music director of the Lakes Area Music Festival, a month-long summer festival committed to commissioning new works and to giving free concerts, with programming that ranges from opera and chamber music to symphonic performances.

Highlights of Reif’s 2023.24 season include appearances with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony, and Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as festival appearances at the Grand Teton Music Festival and Interlochen. Reif will conduct his own arrangement of John Adams’s El Niño with the Cincinnati Symphony, and with the American Modern Opera Company on tour to Stanford, Yale, HarrimanJewel in Kansas City, and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.

Previous season highlights include appearances with the symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Colorado, Indianapolis, Kansas City, and Louisville, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, and at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival with the International Contemporary Ensemble. In Europe, he has performed repeatedly with Orchestre National de Lyon, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, and Stavanger Symphony.

Reif is featured on singer Julia Bullock’s debut solo album Walking in the Dark, where he leads London’s Philharmonia Orchestra and accompanies Bullock on the piano. The album was praised by Gramophone Magazine as “illuminating” and described Reif as providing “excellent support” for Bullock. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Reif and Bullock recorded a series of at-home Songs of Comfort, ranging from Carole King’s classic “Up on the Roof” to Schubert’s Wandrers Nachtlied NPR Music featured the duo in a Tiny Desk Concert for their quarantine edition of the series, and The New York Times highlighted them on their “Best Classical Music of 2020” list.

From 2016 to 2019, Reif was resident conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and music director of the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, after being the conducting fellow at the New World Symphony from 2014 to 2016 and at Tanglewood in 2015 and 2016. He studied conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and at The Juilliard School in New York City. He resides in Munich with his wife, Julia Bullock, and their son.

More information on Christian Reif can be found at www.christianreif.eu Management for Christian Reif:

Primo Artists, New York, NY www.primoartists.com

Randall Goosby

“For me, personally, music has been a way to inspire others” — Randall Goosby’s own words sum up perfectly his commitment to being an artist who makes a difference.

Signed exclusively to Decca Classics in 2020 at the age of 24, American violinist Randall Goosby is acclaimed for the sensitivity and intensity of his musicianship alongside his determination to make music more inclusive and accessible, as well as bringing the music of under-represented composers to light.

Highlights of Goosby’s 2023.24 season include debut performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Andris Nelsons, National Symphony with Thomas Wilkins, Pittsburgh Symphony with Manfred Honeck, Seattle Symphony and St. Louis Symphony, both under Christian Reif, with European debuts including a European tour with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Danish National Radio Symphony with Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Oslo Philharmonic with Ryan Wigglesworth, and Lahti Symphony with Roderick Cox.

During 2023.24, Goosby will be artist in residence at London’s Southbank Centre, which will include a return to the London Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 under the direction of Gemma New and feature both recital and chamber concerts. Other upcoming recital appearances include Chamber Music Cincinnati, Emory University in Georgia, Elbphilharmonie Recital Hall in Hamburg, Perth Concert Hall in Scotland, and La Società dei Concerti in Milan.

Goosby was First Prize Winner in the 2018 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. In 2019, he was named the inaugural Robey Artist by Young Classical Artists Trust in partnership with Music Masters in London; and in 2020, he became an Ambassador for Music Masters, a role that sees him mentoring and inspiring students in schools around the United Kingdom.

A former student of Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho, he received his bachelor’s, master’s, and Artist Diploma degrees from The Juilliard School. He is an alumni of the Perlman Music Program and studied previously with Philippe Quint. He plays the “ex-Strauss” Stradivarius (Cremona, 1708) on generous loan from Samsung Foundation of Culture.

Mr. Goosby records exclusively for Decca.

More information on Randall Goosby can be found at www.randallgoosby.com

Management for Randall Goosby:

Primo Artists, New York, NY www.primoartists.com

Program notes by Elaine Schmidt

DORA PEJAČEVIĆ

Born 10 September 1885; Budapest, Hungary

Died 5 March 1923; Munich, Germany

Overture in D minor, Opus 49

Composed: 1919

First performance: Unknown

Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; piccolo; 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 2 trombones; bass trombone; tuba; timpani; percussion (cymbals, triangle); strings

Approximate duration: 6 minutes

Born in Budapest, the Croatian composer, pianist, and violinist Dora Pejačević was a woman of deeply held principles and strong opinions. She was raised in a privileged, aristocratic family, which made it possible for her to have an education and musical training that would’ve been impossible for the child of a working-class family of the time. She received her earliest musical training from her mother, who was quite well-known in the family’s social circle as an exceptional singer and pianist. Pejačević would eventually live in several European capitals, studying with the finest musicians in those cities. Frustrated by what she perceived to be the slow pace of her education, Pejačević began to educate herself, studying the works and writings of many musicians on her own.

Pejačević was a bit reclusive, preferring her own company and the company of books and music to the company of most people. Even so, as she traveled Europe, she made the acquaintance of many famous authors, musicians, and artists. She wrote a great deal of music, including Lieder, chamber music, and beginning in 1913, a good deal of orchestral music, as well.

During World War I, Pejačević defied aristocratic expectations and volunteered as a nurse. She witnessed many horrors as she cared for grievously injured soldiers. Her experiences during the war deepened her already significant disdain for the aristocracy. Pejačević threw herself into her music as an antidote to the gruesome sights and experiences of the war. Although her pre-war music was rooted in Romantic-era style and expression, she, like the rest of the world, was greatly changed by the events and brutality of the war. Her post-war music, including her Overture in D minor, is edgier, more decisive, and more impactful than her earlier works.

In a curious testament to the modern interest in Pejačević’s story and music, her Overture in D minor was arranged for two pianos in August 2021 on a commission by the Blumenstein Piano Association.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN

Born 3 February 1809; Hamburg, Germany

Died 4 November 1847; Leipzig, Germany

Concerto in E minor for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 64

Composed: 1838 – 1844

First performance: 13 March 1845; Leipzig, Germany

Last MSO performance: 29 June 2019; Fabien Gabel, conductor; Simone Lamsma, violin

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

Approximate duration: 26 minutes

Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor was largely written between July and September of 1844. But the piece was born, if one can say that of a concerto, in 1838. In July of that year, he wrote to violinist Ferdinand David, saying that he wanted to write a violin concerto for him. Mendelssohn went on to say that the key of E minor was running through his mind, and that bits of the opening of the piece were haunting him. He was indeed working on sketches for a concerto in E minor, but he was writing it for piano, not violin. The sketches that exist for the E minor piano concerto bear a strong resemblance to what we know as the E minor violin concerto. Although he completed the piece, now writing for the violin, in September of 1844, he made edits and changes in the coming months. The piece was premiered at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 13 March 1845. Violinist Ferdinand David was the soloist.

By the time Mendelssohn wrote this violin concerto, the custom surrounding cadenzas in concertos was changing. During the 18th century and the early part of the 19th century, cadenzas were largely improvised by players during performances. They could be longer or shorter, or more or less technical or lyrical, depending on the abilities and frame of mind of the performer. But by the 1840s, it had become commonplace for composers to write out suggestions for a cadenza, or even a full cadenza. Mendelssohn wrote out a lengthy, complex cadenza for the concerto’s first movement, which Ferdinand David pared down and altered before the premiere performance. David’s version of Mendelssohn’s cadenza is the standard today. Mendelssohn added a bit of surprise surrounding the cadenza. He placed it far earlier in the first movement than the usual end-of-the-movement cadenza placement to which we are all accustomed.

BÉLA BARTÓK

Born 25 March 1881; Nagyszentmiklós, Kingdom of Hungary (now Sânnicolau Mare, Romania)

Died 26 September 1945; New York City, United States

Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123

Composed: 15 August – 8 October 1943 (revised 1945)

First performance: 1 December 1944; Boston, United States

Last MSO performance: 5 October 2013; Asher Fisch, conductor

Instrumentation: 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo); 3 oboes (3rd doubling on English horn); 3 clarinets (3rd doubling on bass clarinet); 3 bassoons (3rd doubling on contrabassoon); 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 2 trombones; bass trombone; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, snare drum without snare, suspended cymbals, tam-tam, triangle); 2 harps; strings

Approximate duration: 36 minutes

Hungarian-born composer Béla Bartók wrote his Concerto for Orchestra in just two months in 1943, while recuperating from a lung ailment in upstate New York. Although he regained his strength, he was not told that his lung ailment was caused by leukemia, which would end his life two years later.

Two of Bartók’s friends and fellow expatriate Hungarians, violinist Joseph Szigeti and conductor Fritz Reiner, knew that Bartók was ill and was going through financial difficulties. They approached Boston Symphony conductor Serge Koussevitzky to suggest a commission for Bartók. Koussevitzky commissioned a piece in memory of his late wife, Natalie Koussevitsky.

According to a program note Bartók wrote for the concerto’s premiere, “The title of this symphony-like orchestral work is explained by its tendency to treat the single orchestral instruments in a concertant, or soloistic, manner.” As a result of this approach, members of the orchestra serve as both soloists and accompanying musicians over the course of the piece.

The piece’s structure, which is that of a musical palindrome, is also rather unique in orchestral music. The piece’s five movements are laid out like the letters in the palindromic word “civic”: a big opening movement is followed by a scherzo, which is then followed by the slow middle movement of the piece. Next comes another scherzo, and then a big final movement.

Koussevitsky led the Boston Symphony in the premiere of the Concerto for Orchestra on 1 December 1944. Bartók got “grudging permission” from his doctors to travel to Boston for the premiere. His wife, pianist Ditta Pásztory, wrote about it, saying, “The performance was excellent. Koussevitzky says it is the best orchestral piece of the last 25 years (including the works of his idol, Shostakovich!)”

Bartók would complete just one more piece, his 1944 Sonata for Solo Violin, before succumbing to leukemia on 26 September 1945. He was buried in New York State, but in 1980, his remains were moved to Hungary at the request of the Hungarian government and his two sons. He was given a state funeral and was buried beside his wife.