BRUCKNER & MOZART

BRUCKNER & MOZART

Friday, March 4, 2022 at 11:15 am Saturday, March 5, 2022 at 7:30 pm ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL Ken-David Masur, conductor Jorge Federico Osorio, piano

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Concerto No. 23 in A major for Piano and Orchestra, K. 488

I. Allegro

II. Adagio

III. Allegro assai Jorge Federico Osorio, piano INTERMISSION

ANTON BRUCKNER Symphony No. 7 in E major (1883)

I. Allegro moderato

II. Adagio: Sehr feierlich

III. Scherzo: Sehr schnell

IV. Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht schnell

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 JORGE FEDERICO OSORIO Jorge Federico Osorio has been lauded throughout the world for his superb musicianship, powerful technique, vibrant imagination, and deep passion. He is the recipient of several international prizes and awards, including the prestigious Medalla Bellas Artes, the highest honor granted by Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts.

Osorio has performed with many of the world’s leading ensembles, including the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico; the Israel, Warsaw, and Royal Philharmonics; RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra (Dublin), Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai (Torino), São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP), Moscow State Orchestra, Orchestre Nationale de France, Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Osorio’s orchestral recordings include Beethoven’s five piano concertos and Choral Fantasy; both Brahms concertos; and concertos by Chávez, Mozart, Ponce, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Rodrigo, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Weinberg.

34

MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Program notes by J. Mark Baker On today’s concert, pianist Jorge Federico Osorio performs Mozart’s Concerto No. 23 in A major for Piano and Orchestra. After intermission, we’ll hear Anton Bruckner’s best-known work, his mighty Symphony No. 7.

Anton Bruckner

Born 4 September 1824; Ansfeld, Upper Austria Died 11 October 1896; Vienna, Austria Symphony No. 7 in E major

Composed: 1881-83 First performance: 30 December 1884; Leipzig, Germany Last MSO performance: May 2017; Edo de Waart, conductor Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 4 Wagner tubas, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, strings Approximate duration: 64 minutes It’s somewhat startling to realize that the premieres of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 and Brahms’s Symphony No. 3 (2 December 1883) came just over a year apart. For that matter, it’s surprising to note that Brahms – the stalwart holdout of another era, a fancier of the music of Heinrich Schütz and an original subscriber to the Bach-Gesellschaft Edition – was nine years younger than Bruckner – a late-blooming descendant of Austrian peasantry, a life-long auto-didact, and a friend and disciple of Richard Wagner.

As Brahms looked to the past for inspiration, Bruckner followed the more “innovative” trends of his idol. (He was at Bayreuth in 1876 for the premiere complete Ring cycle and in 1882 for the first performance of Parsifal.)

Let’s face it: Bruckner’s symphonies are more challenging for the listener than Brahms’s – or even those of their later contemporary Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). And though Bruckner cited Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 as a profound influence – his four main movement types are derived from it (a divergent opening movement, a spacious adagio, a sonata-form scherzo, a large summative finale) – he was likewise influenced by Wagner’s glacially slow harmonic progressions, his lengthy and emotionally fraught melodies, his substantial full-brass pronouncements, and his protracted time scale.

As the British musicologist Deryck Cooke has noted, Bruckner’s symphonies formerly were thought of either as bumbling approaches to the Beethovenian model or as clumsy ill-fated attempts at writing “Wagnerian symphonies.” Nowadays, we recognize Bruckner’s compositional originality and individuality of spirit. In its very essence, sonata form is steadily moving forward, seeking a destination. “But with Bruckner firm in his [Roman Catholic] faith,” says Cooke, “the music has no need to go anywhere, no need to find a point of arrival, because it is already there... Experiencing Bruckner’s symphonic music is more like walking round a cathedral, and taking in each part of it, than like setting out on a journey for some hoped-for goal... No more than a medieval cathedral will Bruckner’s symphonies reveal their majesty and grandeur to the sophisticated and impatient.”

Bruckner’s Seventh is his best-known symphony, one that still speaks with unique directness and that brought the 60-year-old composer immediate, if long-delayed, success. At its Leipzig premiere, conducted by Arthur Nikisch, the ovation lasted a full 15 minutes. Widely circulated, within three years audiences in Munich, Karlsruhe, Vienna, Graz, Hamburg, Cologne, Amsterdam, Chicago, New York, Boston, Berlin, and Budapest had basked in its sublimity.

The lengthy Allegro moderato opens with a spacious cello melody, with each subsequent phrase seeming to grow organically from what has preceded it. There are three important themes, an expansive development section, and a generous coda. (The latter is set above a stubborn pedal-E in the bass, often at odds with the rest of the orchestra.) The transcendent Adagio is a statement of deep spirituality, one that asserts Bruckner’s unflagging belief in God. It incorporates four Wagner tubas, an instrument Wagner designed for the Ring cycle, here making their first appearance in symphonic music. As Bruckner was completing this movement, Wagner died in Venice on 13 February 1883. After hearing the news, Bruckner wrote the quiet coda – it begins with the quartet of Wagner tubas plus contrabass tuba – “the funeral music for the master” as he called it, in tribute to the man he esteemed above all living musicians.

Dominated by a recurring string motif and a vibrant trumpet theme, the restless scherzo propels us out of church into the open air. The bucolic trio is a bit slower and more transparently scored.

Bruckner imbues the finale with thematic ideas that range in character from whimsical to wonderfully bizarre to charmingly straightforward. At the end, the work’s opening cello theme is heard in the final triumphant E major fanfares.

2021.22 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) Chi Li, Acting Assistant Concertmaster Alexander Ayers Michael Giacobassi Yuka Kadota Dylana Leung Lijia Phang Margot Schwartz SECOND VIOLINS Jennifer Startt, Principal Andrea and Woodrow Leung Second Violin Chair Timothy Klabunde, Assistant Principal Glenn Asch John Bian 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 3rd Chair Assistant Principal 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 Gregory Mathews Peter Szczepanek Peter J. Thomas Adrien Zitoun BASSES Jon McCullough-Benner, Principal Donald B. Abert Bass Chair Andrew Raciti, Associate Principal Scott Kreger Catherine McGinn Rip Prétat HARP Julia Coronelli, Principal Walter Schroeder Harp Chair FLUTES Sonora Slocum, Principal Margaret and Roy Butter Flute Chair Heather Zinninger Yarmel, 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 William Helmers E FLAT CLARINET Benjamin Adler BASS CLARINET William Helmers BASSOONS Catherine Chen, 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 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 Robert 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 Paul Beck, Interim Assistant Personnel Manager LIBRARIANS Patrick McGinn, Principal Librarian, Anonymous Donor, Principal Librarian Chair Paul Beck, Associate Librarian PRODUCTION TECHNICAL MANAGER Tristan Wallace, Technical Manager & Live Audio Supervisor Paolo Scarabel, Stage Technician & Deck Supervisor

* Leave of Absence 2021.22 Season