Program notes by Elaine Schmidt
JOHANNES BRAHMS
Born 7 May 1833; Hamburg, Germany
Died 3 April 1897; Vienna, Austria
Serenade No. 2 in A major, Opus 16
Composed: 1859
First performance: 10 February 1860; Hamburg, Germany
Last MSO performance: February 1997; Neal Gittleman, conductor
Instrumentation: 2 flutes; piccolo; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; violas; cellos; contrabasses
Approximate duration: 29 minutes
Composer Johannes Brahms saw himself as the musical successor to Beethoven, particularly in the symphonic tradition. It was not the proximity of Brahms’s birth (1833) to Beethoven’s death (1827) that engendered these feelings, nor was it a matter of Brahms taking an inflated view of himself. When Brahms was still in his early 20s, he played some of his music for composer and music critic Robert Schumann, who famously wrote that Brahms was, “the heir to Beethoven,” launching the young man into the limelight and terrifying him with that expectation.
The notion of being Beethoven’s musical successor was rather daunting to Brahms for many years — for perfectly understandable reasons. Beethoven had completely redefined the idea of symphonic form and composition as a craft over the course of his nine symphonies. Imagine being asked to pick up where Beethoven had left off with his Symphony No. 9. The idea was so overwhelming to Brahms that he wrote in a letter to a conductor who was a friend his, “I shall never write a symphony! You can’t have any idea what it is like to hear such a great giant marching behind you!” He was already 40 years old when he wrote that letter.
Brahms began writing a symphony in 1854, but gave up on the idea and turned the piece into a sonata for two pianos before scrapping that idea in favor of turning it into a piano concerto. The concerto received a decidedly negative reaction at its premiere, which featured Brahms as the soloist. The following year, he began musical sketches for another symphony, one that would take him about 20 years to complete — 20 years of agonizing over whether he was up to the task. But the 20 years it took Brahms to complete his Symphony No. 1 were not filled with procrastination. Among the many pieces he wrote during this time were his serenades for orchestra, opus numbers 11 and 16. He was employed as a court musician in Detmold at the time, where he had access to an orchestra.
The first of the two serenades sounds a bit bland, in the context of what we know Brahms would go on to compose, but the second is much more in keeping with the orchestral colors and artful phrase structures of Brahms’s later orchestral writing. Brahms omitted violins from the orchestra for this piece, giving it a dark, warm, almost throaty sound and a rather moody feel at times.
Brahms sent the completed second serenade to Robert Schumann’s widow, the piano virtuoso and composer Clara Wieck Schumann, with whom he shared a devoted, complex relationship. She loved it, which gave him the confidence to put it before the public.
MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 23
RICHARD STRAUSS
Born 11 June 1864; Munich, Germany
Died 8 September 1949; Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany
Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major for Horn and Orchestra, Opus 11
Composed: 1882-83
First performance: 4 March 1885; Meiningen, Germany
Last MSO performance: May 1996; Marin Alsop, conductor; William Barnewitz, horn
Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; timpani; strings
Approximate duration: 16 minutes
When the great German composer Richard Strauss penned his Concerto No. 1 for horn and orchestra, he was not yet the towering musical figure that he would become. In fact, he was just 18 and had recently entered university to study philosophy. So how, you might ask, did a teenaged philosophy student come to write a concerto that would still be a staple in the horn repertoire, and one of the best-known pieces of that repertoire, more than a century later? He did it, in part, by following a bit of advice that fiction writers often offer today: write what you know.
Although Strauss, who had begun composing at age six, was not a virtuoso horn player, his father, Franz, was one of the preeminent horn virtuosi in Europe. The Strauss household had been filled with the sounds of the elder Strauss warming up and practicing throughout Richard’s life. Not only did he understand the range and capabilities of the instrument by the time he wrote this concerto, but he also understood its possibilities. Add to that the fact that even at 18, Strauss was a wonderful melodist, and you begin to see how the enduring concerto came to be. In addition to growing up with phenomenal horn playing in his ears and possessing musical inclinations at a young age, Strauss grew up in a household of great means. His mother, whose maiden name was Pschorr, was the heiress to some of the Hacker-Pschorr brewing fortune. As a result, Strauss received music lessons and exposure to musical performances from an early age. Throughout this piece, one hears an unmistakable, youthful exuberance. For instance, Strauss offers listeners exactly one orchestral chord before launching the solo horn into a ringing, unaccompanied fanfare, which is then revisited and reworked throughout the piece. Additionally, he built the concerto of three linked movements that flow so gracefully into a whole that it can take listeners a few beats to realize that they’ve been ushered into a new movement.
Strauss would come to be seen as a musical successor to Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner and would define the tone poem genre with his Till Eulenspiegel, Don Juan, and An Alpine Symphony. He would also create operas that remain an essential part of today’s opera repertoire. But in this early concerto, listeners can hear influences of Felix Mendelssohn, as well as reminders of the music of Mozart, whom Strauss viewed with great reverence. In fact, Strauss commented numerous times that Mozart’s “Jupiter” symphony, which also appears on this evening’s program, was one of his favorite pieces of music.
24 MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Born 27 January 1756; Salzburg, Austria
Died 5 December 1791; Vienna, Austria
Symphony No. 41, K. 551, “Jupiter”
Composed: 1788
First performance: Unknown
Last MSO performance: April 2016; Courtney Lewis, conductor
Instrumentation: flute; 2 oboes; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; timpani; strings
Approximate duration: 31 minutes
The world remembers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as an astonishing child prodigy, who toured Europe as a young boy, performing with his older sister, Maria Anna (Nannerl) Mozart. Although he matured into a brilliant musician whose music is still heard with awe today, he never received the sort of praise or adulation as an adult that he had as a child. He traveled Europe as a young man, searching for work, but found none. He worked for a time in his hometown of Salzburg, Austria, but found it a stifling cultural backwater after his travels. He eventually moved to Vienna, where he was certain he could make a fine living as a freelance musician. That did not work out at all as he planned.
Although he created musical masterpieces in Vienna, including his opera The Magic Flute, his Requiem, and his Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter” — his longest and by far most intense symphony — along with many others, he struggled to support his wife and their six children, only two of whom survived to adulthood. Although we know a great deal about the creation of much of his music, his last three symphonies, No. 39, No. 40, and No. 41, “Jupiter,” present questions historians have not yet been able to answer.
Mozart wrote the three symphonies, each built of four movements in the late-Classical style, in just six to nine weeks, depending on which historical account you read. During that same time, he was moving his family to a new apartment, grieving the loss of his infant daughter, writing several other pieces, and scrambling to stave off financial disaster. One question about the symphonies haunts historians: why did Mozart, on the brink of financial disaster, write three such consuming works without any promise of payment for them?
History does not tell us with certainty if Mozart heard any of the three symphonies in the three years between their completion and his death. Some historians think he may have heard one of them, and some will say it was likely No. 40. We also don’t know who dubbed Mozart’s final symphony “Jupiter.” His younger surviving son, Franz Xavier Wolfgang Mozart, believed it was Johann Peter Salomon, who wrote an early biography of Mozart, while many historians believe it was British music publisher Johann Baptist Cramer.
What we do know is that these symphonies are still hailed as works of great genius. We also know that Richard Strauss, whose Horn Concerto No. 1 appears on this evening’s program, was an ardent fan of Mozart and often said that Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter,” was among his favorite pieces of music. Even today, more than 230 years after it was written, “Jupiter,” comes across the footlights as an inventive, expressive, contrast-filled, and completely engrossing work of musical genius.
MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 25
2022.23 SEASON
KEN-DAVID MASUR
Music Director
Polly and Bill Van Dyke
Music Director Chair
EDO DE WAART
Music Director Laureate
YANIV DINUR
Resident Conductor
CHERYL FRAZES HILL
Chorus Director
Margaret Hawkins Chorus Director Chair
TIMOTHY J. BENSON
Assistant Chorus Director
FIRST VIOLINS
Ilana Setapen, Acting Concertmaster, Charles and Marie Caestecker
Concertmaster Chair
Jeanyi Kim, Acting Associate Concertmaster (2nd Chair)
Alexanders Ayers, Acting Assistant Concertmaster
Yuka Kadota
Ji-Yeon Lee**
Dylana Leung
Allison Lovera
Lijia Phang
Margot Schwartz*
Alejandra Switala**
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
Shengnan Li*
Laurie Shawger
Mary Terranova
VIOLAS
Robert Levine, Principal, Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Principal Viola Chair
Samantha Rodriguez, Acting Assistant Principal, Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri Viola 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
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
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
E FLAT CLARINET
Benjamin Adler
BASS CLARINET
Taylor Eiffert
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
LIBRARIAN
Paul Beck, Principal Librarian, Anonymous Donor, Principal Librarian Chair
PRODUCTION
Tristan Wallace, Technical Manager & Live Audio Supervisor
Paolo Scarabel, Stage Technician & Deck Supervisor
* Leave of Absence 2022.23 Season
** Acting member of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra 2022.23 Season
26 MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
