ODE TO JOY: BEETHOVEN’S NINTH Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 7:30 pm Friday, June 17, 2022 at 7:30 pm Saturday, June 18, 2022 at 7:30 pm Sunday, June 19, 2022 at 2:30 pm ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL Ken-David Masur, conductor Aizuri Quartet Emma Frucht, violin Miho Saegusa, violin Ayane Kozasa, viola Karen Ouzounian, cello Felicia Moore, soprano Deborah Nansteel, mezzo-soprano Andrew Haji, tenor Nathan Berg, bass baritone Milwaukee Symphony Chorus Cheryl Frazes-Hill, chorus director
JOHN ADAMS Absolute Jest for string quartet and orchestra Aizuri Quartet Emma Frucht, violin Miho Saegusa, violin Ayane Kozasa, viola Karen Ouzounian, cello
INTERMISSION (continued on page 48)
(ODE TO JOY continued from page 47)
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Opus 125, “Choral” I. Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso II. Molto vivace III. Adagio molto e cantabile IV. Presto – Allegro assai – Allegro assai vivace Felicia Moore, soprano Deborah Nansteel, mezzo-soprano Andrew Haji, tenor Nathan Berg, bass baritone Milwaukee Symphony Chorus Cheryl Frazes-Hill, chorus director 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.
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Guest Artist Biographies
AIZURI QUARTET Emma Frucht, violin Miho Saegusa, violin Ayane Kozasa, viola Karen Ouzounian, cello
The Aizuri Quartet has established a unique position within today’s musical landscape, infusing all their music-making with infectious energy, joy, and warmth, cultivating curiosity in listeners, and inviting audiences into the concert experience through their innovative programming and the depth and fire of their performances. The Aizuri Quartet was awarded the Grand Prize at the 2018 M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition, along with top prizes at the 2017 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in Japan and the 2015 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition in London. The Quartet’s debut album, Blueprinting, featuring new works written for the Aizuri Quartet by five American composers, was released by New Amsterdam Records to critical acclaim, nominated for a 2019 GRAMMY Award, and named one of NPR Music’s Best Classical Albums of 2018. The 2020.21 concert season, featuring the Aizuri Quartet’s Expanse, What’s Past is Prologue, and Song Emerging recital programs, showcases the breadth of the Quartet’s musical appetite. Notable highlights include the Quartet’s major concerto debut with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in performances of John Adams’s Absolute Jest, its debut at the 92Y, a collaborative program with Anthony McGill and Demarre McGill at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the premieres of new string quartets by Lembit Beecher and Paul Wiancko presented by the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. The 2020.21 concert season illustrated the Aizuri Quartet’s ingenuity and creativity, as they offered beautifully filmed performances along with spoken program notes for virtual concerts during the pandemic. The Quartet appeared in virtual and hybrid concerts presented by Baryshnikov Arts Center, Tippet Rise, Friends of Chamber Music Denver, Kaufmann Music Center, Ohio Performing Arts, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, New Orleans Friends of Chamber Music, Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music, Chamber Music Pittsburgh, and Shriver Hall Concert Series, among others. Special projects included collaborations with Celtic harpist Maeve Gilchrist, as well as guitarist Nels Cline, with whom they recorded Douglas Cuomo’s Seven Limbs, released on Sunnyside Records. Formed in 2012 and combining four distinctive musical personalities into a powerful collective, the Aizuri Quartet draws its name from “aizuri-e,” a style of predominantly blue Japanese woodblock printing that is noted for its vibrancy and incredible detail.
Guest Artist Biographies FELICIA MOORE Noted by The Wall Street Journal for her “opulent, Wagner-scaled soprano” and acclaimed by The New York Times as the “lustrous, commanding soprano,” Felicia Moore is recognized as a powerful and innovative artist. In the 2021.22 season, Moore makes her Metropolitan Opera debut as First Lady in The Magic Flute under the baton of Dame Jane Glover and covers in Elektra in the company’s revival of the Patrice Chéreau production led by Sir Donald Runnicles. She makes a role debut as Sieglinde in Die Walküre with New Orleans Opera, and concert engagements bring Moore to the Las Vegas Philharmonic for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and to the Erie Philharmonic for Mahler’s Second Symphony. Highlights of past seasons include the role of Susan B. Anthony in The Mother of Us All at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a part of Project 19, the New York Philharmonic’s multi-season initiative marking the centennial of the 19th Amendment, and the title role of Lady M in an online fantasia of Verdi’s Macbeth with Heartbeat Opera, as well as the soprano’s first appearance on the roster of the Metropolitan Opera covering First Lady in The Magic Flute.
DEBORAH NANSTEEL Mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel is poised for international stardom, having already performed in almost all of the leading opera companies in the U.S. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera as Alisa in Lucia di Lammermoor, her debut with the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Gertrude in Roméo et Juliette, her Carnegie Hall debut in Mozart’s Coronation Mass, and her New York Philharmonic debut alongside Eric Owens in In Their Footsteps: Great African American Singers and Their Legacy. She also performed the role of Mother in the world premiere of Blind Injustice with Cincinnati Opera, which will soon be commercially released on the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Fanfare Cincinnati label. 2020 and 2021 engagements were to include the Mother in Jeanne Tesori and Tazwell Thompson’s Blue with Minnesota Opera, the role of Miriam in the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s Awakenings with Opera Theater St. Louis, a role debut of Amneris in Aida with Opera Carolina, and a return to the Metropolitan Opera for The Fiery Angel. Sought after for her performances on the concert stage, Nansteel has performed Handel’s Messiah with the Memphis Symphony and Charleston Symphony; John Harbison’s Mirabai Songs with the Oregon Mozart Players; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Seattle Symphony and Fondazione Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro Sinfonico in Milan under the baton of Maestro Xian Zhang; the role of Brigitta in Bard Music Festival’s Die tote Stadt in concert; and various additional concerts including Stravinsky’s Les noces, Penderecki’s Credo, and Handel’s Israel in Egypt.
Guest Artist Biographies ANDREW HAJI Canadian tenor Andrew Haji has become one of the most sought-after voices on both operatic and concert stages. Winner of the Grand Prix at the 50th International Vocal Competition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and the Montreal International Music Competition’s Oratorio Prize, Haji recently debuted with Calgary Opera in Norma and performed Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall. Haji’s 2021.22 season engagements have included the Canadian Opera Company’s digital productions of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah (National Arts Centre, Houston Symphony), La bohème with Edmonton Opera, La traviata with Calgary Opera, and a return to New York with Orchestra of St. Luke’s for Mozart’s Requiem. Upcoming, Haji looks forward to performing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Victoria Symphony and Bach’s B Minor Mass at the Elora Festival.
NATHAN BERG Canadian bass-baritone Nathan Berg has enjoyed a career spanning a vast range of repertoire on the concert and operatic stage. He recently earned worldwide acclaim for his portrayals of the title role in Der fliegende Holländer in his Bolshoi Theatre debut, Alberich in Das Rheingold with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and Minnesota Opera, Doktor in Wozzeck with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Houston Symphony, for which he won a GRAMMY Award, and his company debut at Teatro alla Scala in Robert Carsen’s world-premiere production of Battistelli’s CO2. In the 2021.22 season, Berg performed with the Metropolitan Opera as The Father in the New York premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, returns to Theater Basel as Philippe in Don Carlos, and debuts the role of Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde with the Taiwan Philharmonic. He will also lead a residency with Opera Lafayette in Taos, New Mexico, culminating in performances of Grétry’s Silvain in both New York and Washington, D.C. In the 2020.21 season, Berg made a highly acclaimed debut with Theater Basel in the title role of Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise. The previous season, he made his role and house debut as Jochanaan in Salome with Atlanta Opera, and returned to the roster of the Metropolitan Opera in Manon and Turandot. On the concert stage, he joined the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as Palemon in Thaïs, the Rotterdam Philharmonic on a European tour as Der Einarmige in Die Frau ohne Schatten, led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in Berlioz’s Lélio.
Program notes by J. Mark Baker With this weekend’s concerts, the MSO’s first full season in its magnificent new home comes to an end. One can think of no better way to celebrate this milestone than with Beethoven’s (and Schiller’s) paean to the interconnectedness of all humanity. John Adams’s music – which borrows material from Beethoven – gets us off to a rollicking start. John Adams Born 15 February 1947; Worchester, Massachusetts
Absolute Jest for string quartet and orchestra
Composed: 2012; revised 2013 First performance: 15 March 2012; San Francisco, California Last MSO performance: MSO premiere Instrumentation: 2 flutes; piccolo; 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; 2 bassoons; contra bassoon; 4 horns; 2 trumpets (1st doubling on piccolo trumpet); 2 trombones; timpani; percussion (bass drum, chimes, cowbell, glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone); harp; celeste; piano; strings Approximate duration: 25 minutes John Adams was born and raised in New England, where he learned the clarinet from his father and played in marching bands and community orchestras during his formative years. He began composing at age ten and heard his first orchestral pieces performed while still a teenager. After graduating from Harvard, he moved in 1971 to the San Francisco Bay area where he has lived ever since. Adams’s orchestral scores are among the most frequently performed and influential compositions by an American since the era of Copland and Bernstein. Works such as Shaker Loops, Harmonielehre, Short Ride in a Fast Machine, and his Violin Concerto are by now staples of the symphonic repertoire. His operas and oratorios, including Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, El Niño, and Doctor Atomic – many with themes drawn from recent American history – have made a significant impact on the course of contemporary opera and are among the most produced by any living composer. His recent works include the Passion oratorio The Gospel According to the Other Mary, a saxophone concerto, and Scheherazade.2, a “dramatic symphony for violin and orchestra,” written for Leila Josefowicz. Adams was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for On the Transmigration of Souls (2003), commemorating those who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Absolute Jest was written on a commission from the San Francisco Symphony, as part of their centennial season. Michael Tilson Thomas led its premiere, with the St. Lawrence String Quartet as soloists. Unhappy with its opening section, Adams revised the work in 2013. It is that version we’ll hear on tonight’s concert. Adams first got the idea for Absolute Jest from hearing a performance of Stravinsky’s Pulchinella, which filters the music of G.B. Pergolesi and other Baroque-era composers through Stravinsky’s DNA. In what he has called “a hall of mirrors,” Adams takes fragments from Beethoven – the String Quartets of Opus 131 and Opus 135, the Grosse Fuga, and the scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, among others – to create “the world’s largest scherzo” (Adams). In choosing the word
“jest,” the composer noted that the term doesn’t just mean “joke” (scherzo), but rather hints at its Latin root, “gesta,” which implies “invention.” And inventive it is! Adams displays a latter-day fascination with age-old contrapuntal techniques. Beethoven’s motifs are stretched, turned upside-down, and piled one on top of the other. There’s a dynamic dialogue between the solo quartet and the orchestra, with the former taking the spotlight from time to time. For the work’s striking coda, Adams turned to a work from Beethoven’s middle period, the Piano Sonata in C major, Opus 53. Adams’s teenaged son had been practicing the piece, one the composer never tired of hearing. Listen, as the music “rides upon the harmonic changes at the opening of the ‘Waldstein’” (Adams).
Ludwig van Beethoven
Baptized 17 December 1770; Bonn, Germany Died 26 March 1827; Vienna, Austria
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, “Choral”
Composed: 1822-24 First performance: 7 May 1824; Vienna, Austria Last MSO performance: June 2018; Jun Märkl, conductor; Heidi Stober, soprano; Kelley O’Connor, mezzo-soprano; Anthony Dean Griffey, tenor; Morris Robinson, bass Instrumentation: 2 flutes; piccolo; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, triangle); strings Approximate duration: 65 minutes The brotherhood of man was a longed-for goal for both Ludwig van Beethoven and Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805), the great poet whose words Beethoven used in the finale of the Ninth Symphony. Schiller’s ode An die Freude (“To Joy”) had appealed to Beethoven for a long time; he was only 22 (1792) when he first planned to set it to music, though the earliest surviving sketches for the Ninth Symphony date from 1817 and 1818. Beethoven’s “Joy” theme is one of the best-known melodies in classical music. From its use in beginning piano instruction books to its adaptation as a church hymn to its appearance in countless film soundtracks to its performance at every Olympic Games since 1956, its presence is seemingly ubiquitous. Because of this, notes Beethoven scholar Lewis Lockwood, there are two “Ninth Symphonies” in the mind of the general public: “One is the ‘Ode to Joy’ itself, as a choral anthem; that is, just the melody, not the elaborate and complex movement from which it comes. The other is the symphony as a complete work, a large-scale four-movement cycle in which the enormous finale brings solo and choral voices into the symphonic genre for the first time.” Consider, too, the fact that the Ninth has been put to cultural and political use, for both abhorrent and redeeming ends. The Nazis, after declaring Beethoven sufficiently Germanic and racially pure, propagandized his works as the sum and substance of Aryan strength; Furtwängler even conducted a performance of the Ninth to celebrate Hitler’s 53rd birthday. At the other end of the spectrum, it has been used to proclaim freedom, most memorably at the 25 December 1989 concert led by Leonard Bernstein to celebrate the destruction of the Berlin Wall. On that happy occasion, the great maestro instructed the singers to use the word “freedom” (“Freiheit”) instead of “joy” (“Freude”). In his sketchbooks for the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies, both finished in 1812, Beethoven makes mention of at least one further symphony. Over ten years elapsed, though, before he turned his full attention to the Ninth. By the autumn of 1822, he had finished the bulk of the
Missa solemnis and had put the finishing touches on his last two piano sonatas. Most of Opus 125 was composed between then and the end of 1823; by February 1824, the score was complete. On its face, the Ninth looks like a conventional symphony. It is set is four movements, though the slow movement is placed third, not second, providing greater contrast to what follows. And what follows, as we all know, is a finale that is unlike anything else in the orchestral canon. It, and the entire work itself, is a watershed in the history of symphonic music, one that would influence composers in the generations that followed – from Brahms and Wagner to Berlioz and Mahler – all the way into the 21st century. The opening 16 measures evoke the sound of an orchestra tuning up before a performance. “Is this the first theme?” we might wonder, but the true first theme then forcefully erupts: a descending D-minor arpeggio. The main subject is then restated in B-flat major and remains in that key to the end of the exposition. The development section features fugato writing on several motifs and leads to the recapitulation with a return to the “introduction.” This time, though, the full orchestra is in D major, fortissimo. A powerful coda, itself almost like another development section, closes the movement. The extended second movement – over 1,500 measures, if all internal repeats are counted – is a scherzo (though Beethoven had by 1822 given up the use of that term). Set in D minor, it is characterized by impetuous forward motion, symmetrical phrase structure, and imitative textures. A sylvan trio in D major provides a quiet interlude between the extroverted music of the scherzo. The songful Adagio is surely some of the most heartfelt music the master ever set down. It is an elegant set of variations on two melodies: the first (Adagio molto cantabile) is in B-flat major; the second (Andante moderato) is in D major. Toward the movement’s end, fanfares for trumpets and timpani disrupt the quiet, warning us that something momentous is just over the horizon. The movement ends quietly, but with anticipation. Beethoven’s history-changing finale begins with a dissonant fanfare that combines two chords: B-flat major (the key of the Adagio) and D minor (the Ninth’s overall key). Recitativelike passages for the lower strings follow, as music from the first three movements is stated in turn, each time separated by recitative, and rebuffed. The woodwinds at last intimate the “Joy” theme, which is graciously accepted. Cellos and double basses intone this melody, gradually joined by the rest of the orchestra. The opening Presto returns to usher in a recitative for the bass soloist; he then leads the chorus and the other soloists through three verses of Schiller’s poem. A Turkish march for the tenor soloist and men’s chorus follows, replete with cymbals and triangle; it is a variant of the “Joy” motif. The march theme is developed as a spirited orchestral double fugue, then the chorus repeats the first verse text in yet another guise. A broad new motive sets the words “Seid umschungen, Millionen” and leads to a mystical Adagio. Beethoven quickens the pace to Allegro energico as the first verse returns in yet another variation; this is combined with “Seid umschungen” to fashion a jubilant double fugue for chorus and orchestra. A florid, polyphonic cadenza for the four soloists leads to the concluding Prestissimo, an ebullient stretto on “Seid umschungen” that is checked only briefly by a grand Maestoso for “Joy, the daughter of Elysium.” The story of the first performance of the Ninth Symphony is one of musical legend. Beethoven was in the middle of the orchestra, following the music with his score, but he was so deaf that he seemed to have lost his place. At the conclusion, there was tremendous applause, which Beethoven could not hear, The incident was described by Sir George Grove, who heard it, long after Beethoven’s death, from Caroline Unger, the alto soloist of that first performance: “The master, though placed in the midst of this confluence of music, heard nothing of it at all and was not even sensible of the applause of the audience at the end of his great work, but continued standing with his back to the audience and beating the time, until Fräulein Unger turned him, or induced him
to turn and face the people, who were still clapping their hands and giving way to the greatest demonstrations of pleasure. His turning about, and the sudden conviction thereby forced on everybody that he had not done so before because he could not hear what was going on, acted like an electric shock on all present, and a volcanic explosion of sympathy and admiration followed.”
In his book on the composer (Beethoven; Schirmer Books, 1977), musicologist Maynard Solomon waxes philosophical about this great work: “If we lose our awareness of the transcendent realms of play, beauty, and brotherhood which are portrayed in the great affirmative works of our culture, if we lose the dream of the Ninth Symphony, there remains no counterpoise against the engulfing terrors of civilization, noting to set against Auschwitz and Vietnam as a paradigm of humanity’s potentialities. Maste pieces of art are instilled with a surplus of constantly renewable energy – an energy that provides a motive force for changes in the relations between human beings – because they contain projections of human desires and goals which have not yet been achieved...”
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 Tristan Wallace, Technical Manager & Live Audio Supervisor Paolo Scarabel, Stage Technician & Deck Supervisor
* Leave of Absence 2021.22 Season
