JOSHUA BELL Sponsored by Ellen & Joe Checota

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ken-David Masur, conductor

Joshua Bell, violin

PROGRAM

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK

Symphony No. 8 in G major, Opus 88

I. Allegro con brio

II. Adagio

III. Allegretto grazioso

IV. Allegro ma non troppo

INTERMISSION

ERNEST CHAUSSON

Poème for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 25

Joshua Bell, violin

MAX BRUCH

Concerto No. 1 in G minor for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 26

I. Vorspiel: Allegro moderato

II. Adagio

III. Finale: Allegro energico

Joshua Bell, violin

This evening’s performance is sponsored by ELLEN & JOE CHECOTA

The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes.

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.

Guest Artist Biographies

JOSHUA BELL

JOSHUA BELL

With a career spanning almost four decades, Grammy Awardwinning violinist Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated artists of his era. Having performed with virtually every major orchestra in the world, Bell continues to maintain engagements as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor, and music director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Bell began the violin at age four, and at age 12, began studies with his mentor, Josef Gingold. At age 14, Bell debuted with Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and made his Carnegie Hall debut at age 17 with the St. Louis Symphony. At age 18, Bell signed with his first label, London Decca, and received the Avery Fisher Career Grant. In the years following, Bell has been named 2010 Instrumentalist of the Year by Musical America, a 2007 “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, nominated for six Grammy Awards, and received the 2007 Avery Fisher Prize. He has also received the 2003 Indiana Governor’s Arts Award and a Distinguished Alumni Service Award in 1991 from the Jacobs School of Music. In 2000, he was named an Indiana Living Legend.

Bell has performed for three American presidents and the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. He participated in former president Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ first cultural mission to Cuba, joining Cuban and American musicians on a 2017 Live from Lincoln Center Emmy nominated PBS special, Joshua Bell: Seasons of Cuba, celebrating renewed cultural diplomacy between Cuba and the United States.

Joshua Bell appears by arrangement with Park Avenue Artists (www.parkavenueartists.com) and Primo Artists (www.primoartists.com). Bell records exclusively with Sony Classical - a MASTERWORKS label.

Program notes by Elaine Schmidt

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK

Born: 8 September 1841; Nelahozeves, Austria

Died: 1 May 1904; Prague, Czech Republic

Symphony No. 8 in G major, Opus 88

Composed: 1889

First performance: 2 February 1890; Prague, Czech Republic

Last MSO performance: March 2023; Jonathon Heyward, conductor

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo); 2 oboes (2nd doubling English horn); 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; strings

Approximate duration: 34 minutes

For the sake of clarity, it’s worth pointing out that we are about hear the eighth of the nine symphonies written by Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, which was originally published as his Symphony No. 4. If you find yourself a bit confused as to the numbering of Dvořák’s symphonies, join the club. He wrote his symphonies over the course of about 30 years, but they were not published in any logical order. His first four symphonies were not published during his lifetime. Although the last five of his symphonies were published during his lifetime, they were published in the in the following order: 6, 7, 5, 8, 9, but bearing the numbers 1,2, 3, 4, 5, respectively. A definitive edition of Dvořák’s works was published in the middle of the 20th century, putting all nine symphonies in chronological order and numbering them accordingly. But earlier publications, complete with their rather whimsical numbering, existed in orchestra, conservatory, and university libraries, as well as on recordings, for many years. Some still exist today, as does some confusion as to which number refers to which symphony.

Dvořák wrote his Symphony No. 8 in 1889 at his beloved summer home in Bohemia. He worked on it from late August through early November and conducted its premiere in Prague on February 2, 1890. The Boston Symphony performed the U.S. premiere of the piece in 1892, which is important because the majority of Dvořák’s music was not heard outside what is now the Czech Republic until well into the 20th century. Even in his homeland, Dvořák did not receive much recognition for his music until rather late in his career. The fact that his music was published in the first place is credited to German composer Johannes Brahms, to whom Dvořák sent some of his scores. Brahms was so impressed with the music that he put Dvořák in touch with his publisher, Simrock. Not only did Simrock publish some of Dvořák’s music immediately, but the publishing house drew up a first-option contract for any of the composer’s future works. Simrock did not publish this symphony, although they did offer Dvořák a paltry sum for the rights to do so. It was eventually published by Novello in London and has often been called his “English” symphony, having nothing to do with the music, nor where it was written, but because of the British publisher.

The first two movements of the symphony are somewhat mercurial in temperament, vacillating between major and minor passages, and creating bright expressions of joy contrasted with decidedly darker passages. The third movement features a lovely, gently poignant folk dance, followed by a fourth movement that opens with a trumpet fanfare before delivering elegant, yet sunny, music and a wonderfully rousing finale. This piece has been called the most original, intimate, and bucolic of Dvořák’s symphonies, and many hear it as a depiction of the Bohemian countryside he loved so dearly.

ERNEST CHAUSSON

ERNEST CHAUSSON

Born: 20 January 1855; Paris, France

Died: 10 June 1899; Limay, France

Poème for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 25

Composed: 1896

First performance: 27 December 1896; Nancy, France

Last MSO performance: April 2014; Rossen Milanov, conductor; Frank Almond, violin

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; harp; strings

Approximate duration: 16 minutes

French composer Ernest Chausson dutifully followed his father’s wishes and studied law, rather than following his heart and studying music — at least for a while. Living in Paris, he became a lawyer in 1877, the same year he wrote his first piece of music. Chausson had displayed an interest in music from a young age, along with a sensitive, nervous disposition that led to periods of depression when he was an adult. Some historians have conjectured that the nervousness stemmed from what we would call “helicopter parents” today. After losing their two older sons, they became extremely protective of young Ernest. Chausson’s parents were also quite wealthy, which allowed him to explore his creative interests after he finished his legal training.

Living on family money, Chausson dabbled in visual art and literature before immersing himself in music. He studied with prominent French composers, including Jules Massenet and César Franck, at the Paris Conservatoire. He also traveled to Bayreuth to hear the music of Richard Wagner. Once back in Paris, Chausson began writing music in earnest, became secretary of the French National Society of Music, and hosted a salon that drew some of the most prominent performers and composers of the day. Composer Claude Debussy became an ardent supporter of Chausson’s music, even after the two had a personal falling-out.

Unfortunately, Chausson’s deep anxiety about the quality of his works and his struggles with depression haunted him throughout his adult life. Some biographers have conjectured that his death, caused by the bicycle he was riding crashing into a brick wall, was suicide. Despite his struggles with mental illness, Chausson built a glowing reputation as a composer, creating music that was seen as inventive, charming, and distinctive, yet still containing the reserved character that was a hallmark of French music.

Among the relatively few pieces Chausson wrote in his 22-year career are vocal music, piano pieces, a symphonic poem, a lyric drama, and even an opera in Richard Wagner’s leitmotif style. But his most popular, enduring piece remains his Poème for violin and orchestra, written in 1896 while he was vacationing in Florence, Italy. He wrote it at the request of virtuoso violinist Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe (known at the time as “The King of the Violin”). Ysaÿe’s “premiere” of the piece consisted of his sightreading it at a party in Spain. Even in such circumstances, the piece made such an impression that Ysaÿe had to play three encores of it. The single-movement Poème is built of gorgeous lyrical, expressive, sometimes-moody violin lines, and the double-stops (two notes played at once) for which Ysaÿe was famous — and which he added to the piece after receiving it from Chausson.

MAX BRUCH

MAX BRUCH

Born: 6 January 1838; Cologne, Germany

Died: 2 October 1920; Berlin-Friedenau, Germany

Concerto No. 1 in G minor for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 26

Composed: 1866

First performance: 7 January 1868; Bremen, Germany

Last MSO performance: October 2021; Ken-David Masur, conductor; Frank Almond, violin

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

Approximate duration: 24 minutes

Max Bruch, a highly regarded German composer of the Romantic era, is not one of the “three Bs” of classical music (Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms). Even so, his Violin Concerto No. 1 holds a distinction one might justifiably assume belongs to a concerto by a household-name composer: the concerto remains such a favorite of violinists and audiences that it is one of today’s most frequently performed violin concertos. It has been called “the world’s most popular violin concerto,” which smacks of hyperbole while still speaking to the piece’s tremendous popularity. Violinists often refer to it simply as “the Bruch,” as though the composer’s other two violin concertos and his Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra don’t exist. The popularity of this concerto began during Bruch’s lifetime. One of his sons recalled Bruch’s exasperation at receiving an invitation to conduct yet another performance of the concerto. Bruch apparently blurted, “The g-minor concerto again! I couldn’t bear to hear it even once more! My friends, play the second concerto, or the Scottish Fantasy for once!” Bruch would likely be delighted to know that his Scottish Fantasy is quite popular today.

Bruch was well educated and had a conversational command of several languages, including English, which served him well during his years conducting the Liverpool Philharmonic Society. He was very highly regarded in his day, both as a composer and conductor, and held several prestigious conducting posts in Germany before taking the Liverpool post late in his career. He and Johannes Brahms were friends, which made it rather difficult for Bruch when Brahms’s music and reputation continually overshadowed his own. At a time in which the classical world was divided between those who favored the conservative music of Brahms and those who favored the more modern sounds of Franz Liszt, Bruch stood firmly in the Brahms camp.

Bruch wrote more than 200 pieces, including several operas, choral music, vocal pieces, and chamber music. Despite its undisputed popularity, writing his Violin Concerto No. 1 was difficult for Bruch. He began working on it in 1864 and wrote to a friend more than a year later, saying it was not progressing quickly and that he was not sure he could write a concerto. Bruch withdrew the concerto immediately after its 1866 premiere and began working on it again. He would say later that he rewrote the piece at least six times before the 1868 performance of its final version. Alongside this concerto and the Scottish Fantasy, Bruch’s other tremendously popular piece is his lyrical Kol Nidre for cello and orchestra. It is based on a bit of Jewish liturgical music given to him by a member of a choir he directed. The piece’s expressive beauty led to a mistaken belief that the German Lutheran composer was of Jewish descent and resulted in a ban on his music in Germany during the Nazi era.