Program notes by David Jensen
GIOACHINO ROSSINI
Born 29 February 1792; Pesaro, Italy
Died 13 November 1868; Paris, France
Overture to Guillaume Tell [William Tell]
Composed: 1824 – 1829
First performance: 3 August 1829; François Antoine Habeneck, conductor; Paris Opéra
Last MSO performance: 12 March 1965; Harry John Brown, conductor
Instrumentation: flute; piccolo; 2 oboes (2nd doubling on English horn); 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, triangle); strings
Approximate duration: 12 minutes
One of the most delightful parables of Gioachino Rossini’s prodigious musical abilities comes from the winter of 1813: swaddled in blankets in a cheap Venetian inn, composing a duet for his farcical opera Il signor Bruschino, his manuscript paper fell to the floor. Rather than go to the trouble of getting out of bed to pick it up, he simply began writing a new one from scratch. At just twenty years old, it was already his ninth opera, and within the year, his burgeoning fame would soon flower into unparalleled international renown.
By the time Rossini was penning the last of his 39 operas, he had accumulated more wealth, found greater fame, and exerted more influence than any other composer in the first half of the century. He had relocated to Paris and favorably negotiated a lifetime annuity from the French government, ensuring an early retirement from his frenetic enterprises in the theater. Guillaume Tell, the acme of his creative energies and the capstone of his career, was to be the lengthiest, most opulent of his operas to date, lasting roughly four hours. Given its unwieldy proportions, large swaths of music already lay on the cutting room floor shortly after the premiere. An anecdote places Rossini in the streets with the director of the Paris Opéra: “Tonight we are performing the second act of your Tell.” “Indeed!” the composer replied. “All of it?”
Taking Friedrich Schiller’s 1804 play Wilhelm Tell as its basis, the opera tells the story of the titular Swiss marksman as he leads his countrymen in revolt against the tyrannical Habsburg dynasty. Fluently assimilating the spectacular elements of French opera, the illustrious ensemble numbers, ballets, and heroic feats of patriotism (which were particularly appealing to the romantic nationalism sweeping Europe on the brink of the 1830 revolutions) prompted his contemporary, Gaetano Donizetti, to declare that the first and third acts were composed by a genius, but the second was written by God himself.
Divided into four sections, the overture begins with the breaking dawn as a brooding cello solo in E minor blossoms into a quintet of cellos, supported by double basses, which spin a lush string chorale in the parallel major. The roll of a timpani presages the approaching storm: a flurry of activity in the upper strings builds tension, which erupts as the brass and bass drum thunder above descending chromatic lines in the woodwinds. The storm subsides, giving way to a bucolic ranz des vaches (a simple melody, traditionally played by Alpine herdsman, meant to herd cattle) played in turns by the English horn and flute. The overture culminates with the infamous “March of the Swiss Soldiers,” a rousing galop that foreshadows the thrilling final act of the opera in which the Swiss emerge victorious over their Austrian oppressors.
RICHARD STRAUSS
Born 11 June 1864; Munich, Germany
Died 8 September 1949; Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche
[Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks], Opus 28, TrV 171
Composed: 1894 – 6 May 1895
First performance: 5 November 1895; Franz Wüllner, conductor; Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne
Last MSO performance: 24 September 2016; Edo de Waart, conductor
Instrumentation: 3 flutes; piccolo; 3 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; E-flat clarinet; bass clarinet; 3 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum; cymbals; ratchet; snare drum; triangle); strings
Approximate duration: 15 minutes
Heir to the enormously rich musical heritage of the German Romantics, Richard Strauss is credited with having radically altered the landscape of Western concert music. A born prodigy, his natural gift for composition was nurtured from an early age by his father Franz, the principal horn for the Munich Court Orchestra. Franz, who bore a congenital dislike of modern music — Richard was forbidden to study Wagner’s music, only obtaining a score of Tristan und Isolde at the age of 16 — saturated his son in the music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. By the time Strauss graduated from the Ludwigsgymnasium in Munich in 1882, he had already written more than 140 pieces firmly rooted in the tonal language of the Viennese masters.
But despite his father’s misgivings, his exposure to Wagner’s harmonically progressive operas, which were challenging conventions of tonality, form, and orchestration, left an indelible impression, and his conducting apprenticeship with Hans von Bülow at the Meiningen Court Orchestra in the early 1880s established his reputation as a preeminent talent. Meiningen would prove to be critical to his development: he met Johannes Brahms, the personification of late Romanticism, and the violinist Alexander Ritter, who exposed him to the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer and encouraged him to renounce his musically conservative inclinations and compose the “music of the future” espoused by Wagner and Liszt. The eventual result of this artistic incubation was a series of career-defining tone poems which would become foundational literature of the orchestral canon.
Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks dates from his years as chief conductor of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich — where he was conducting Wagner’s operas — and exploits the expressive power of the expansive Wagnerian orchestra to fantastic effect. The eponymous hero, Till Eulenspiegel (whose surname is translated as “owl mirror”), made his earliest known appearance in publications from the beginning of the sixteenth century, belonging to German folklore as a jocular figure whose antics across the Holy Roman Empire subverted authority and exposed hypocrisy and corruption.
Beginning in a dreamy, fairy-tale setting, a boisterous solo horn interjects, providing the jovial central statement of the poem’s rondo form. Following an orchestral repetition of the theme, a clarinet introduces a second motto, suggestive of laughter, and the music accompanies Till as he blusters through a marketplace, taunts the local clergy, chases young women, and denigrates the stuffy academics. A rollicking climax is suddenly cut short by an ominous drumroll: seized by the authorities, Till (again played by the clarinet) tries to reason with his executioner to no avail. His fate ineluctable, a pizzicato from the strings snaps his neck at the gallows. But all is not lost: after a brief silence, the opening material returns, implying that his legend lives on, and with a final surge of instrumental color, Till himself has the last laugh.
TANIA LEÓN
Born 14 May 1943; Havana, Cuba
Ácana
Composed: 2008
First performance: 29 February 2008; Purchase College Orchestra
Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere
Instrumentation: 2 flutes (both doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes; 2 clarinets (2nd doubling on bass clarinet); 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; trombone; percussion (bamboo wind chimes, bass drum, bongo drums, castanets, claves, congas, djembe, dumbak, frame drum, guiro, high hat, log drum, maracas, 2 marimbas, sizzle cymbal, suspended cymbals, tam tam, temple blocks, wind chimes); piano; strings
Approximate duration: 13 minutes
With a vibrant, diverse, and global career as a composer, conductor, and pedagogue that spans decades, Tania León has earned recognition as one of the most vital voices in contemporary music. Born in Havana, it was her fascination with the family radio that prompted her grandmother to enroll her in her first music lessons. She received her first bachelor’s degree from a Havana conservatory in 1963, but her international career began in the spring of 1967 when she boarded a flight to Miami, one of hundreds of thousands of refugees embarking upon the “Freedom Flights” afforded by a rare stint of cooperation between the Cuban and United States governments.
She made her way to New York, helping to found the Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1969. It was while composing for the newly formed company that she discovered her propensity for writing; she changed her major at New York University from piano to composition, earning a master’s degree under Ursula Mamlok. She would go on to establish the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series, serve as New Music Advisor to Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic, and launch the Composers Now festival. Lessons with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa would lead to conducting appearances with the Beethoven Orchester, the Gewandhausorchester, and the New York Philharmonic. In 2020, the New York Philharmonic premiered Stride, which would earn León the Pulitzer Prize the following year, and she was feted with a Kennedy Center Honor in 2022.
Ácana was inspired by a poem of the same name by Cuban Poet Laureate Nicolás Guillen. The title is the Spanish common name of the species Pouteria multiflora, a tree native to Cuba and renowned for its enormous size (mature specimens are known to reach up to 90 feet tall and three feet in diameter). The plant’s timber, prized for its strength, durability, and deep red hue, is used to build everything from houses to ships, and the poem entwines the tree in every aspect of Cuban life, drawing metaphorical connections to the homes people live in and the tables on which their bodies will one day come to rest.
Two solo trumpets sound an intertwining fanfare over the soft rattle of maracas as hazy string textures and chittering percussive elements are meticulously interwoven — one can practically see the scattered sunlight through the canopy and hear the murmur of forest life. Flutes and clarinets dance over drum beats as dazzling figures from the piano and marimbas forge kaleidoscopic textures. Molto espressivo strings extend a lyrical character to the central section, and a crescendo in the winds leads to interjections from the drums and strings, which lend an angular, energetic quality to the following episode, marked ritmico (“rhythmic”). Solo trumpets herald the work’s conclusion with the hushed return of the opening motif.
OTTORINO RESPIGHI
Born 9 July 1879; Bologna, Italy
Died 18 April 1936; Rome, Italy
Pini di Roma [Pines of Rome], P 141
Composed: 1924
First performance: 14 December 1924; Bernardino Molinari, conductor; Orchestra dell’Augusteo (modern-day Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia)
Last MSO performance: 18 November 2018; Jader Bignamini, conductor
Instrumentation: 3 flutes (3rd doubles on piccolo); 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; 2 soprano buccine (played by 2 rotary trumpets); 2 tenor buccine (played by 2 tenor Wagner tubas); 2 bass buccine (played by 2 tenor trombones); timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, ratchet, snare drum, tam tam, tambourine, triangle); harp; celesta; organ; piano; strings
Approximate duration: 23 minutes
Born into a middle-class family in Bologna, there was no reason to suspect, in his childhood, that Ottorino Respighi would ever achieve worldly acclaim. His father devotedly gave him his first piano and violin lessons, but to his disappointment, his son initially showed little interest. Even his formal training ground to a halt a few years later, having given up on the spot after receiving a slap on the hand from his teacher’s ruler. With some convincing, he took to a more forgiving mentor, eventually enrolling at the Liceo Musicale di Bologna, where he studied violin and viola, counterpoint, and composition, graduating in 1899.
He got his professional start as a “jobbing” musician, first in the orchestra at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, then at the Russian Imperial Theatre in Saint Petersburg, where he served as the opera orchestra’s principal violist. It was there that he encountered Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the great Russian composer and pedagogue renowned as a leading authority on the art of orchestration. Respighi’s lessons with Rimsky-Korsakov would prove to be invaluable: returning to Bologna and completing an advanced course of study in composition at the Liceo, his composition teacher, Giuseppe Martucci, declared that “Respighi is not a pupil, Respighi is a master.”
After years of toiling as a working violinist, he relocated to Rome in 1913 to teach composition. His break finally came in 1918 when Arturo Toscanini programmed his Fountains of Rome on a series of concerts in Milan, paving the way to international fame. Pines of Rome would become the second entry in his so-called “Roman” trilogy, cementing his status as a connoisseur of orchestral color: drawing on a life-long fascination with ancient music, it gives the composer’s impressions of life in the Italian capital, and the four scenes, played without pause, take “nature as a point of departure, to recall memories and visions. The century-old trees which dominate so characteristically the Roman landscape become testimony for the principal events in Roman life.” The first movement, set in the opulent gardens of the Villa Borghese, positively glitters with its spritely tunes in the winds, portraying children at play among the trees, and is quickly contrasted by the thick string textures of the second, which conjure the depths of the Roman catacombs and underscore Respighi’s interest in Gregorian chant. A subdued nocturne depicts an evening on the Janiculum Hill accompanied by a nightingale’s song, played by a solo clarinet marked come in sogno (“as if in a dream”) — Respighi even calls for a specific phonograph recording of the bird to be played at the end of the movement, which is realized with a digital sample in modern performances. The work reaches a blazing peak as Roman soldiers march into the ancient city, attended by gleaming brass fanfares and the steady beat of the timpani.
2024.25 SEASON
KEN-DAVID MASUR
Music Director
Polly and Bill Van Dyke
Music Director Chair
EDO DE WAART
Music Director Laureate
BYRON STRIPLING
Principal Pops Conductor
Stein Family Foundation Principal Pops
Conductor Chair
RYAN TANI
Assistant Conductor
CHERYL FRAZES HILL
Chorus Director
Margaret Hawkins Chorus Director Chair
TIMOTHY J. BENSON
Assistant Chorus Director
FIRST VIOLINS
Jinwoo Lee, Concertmaster, Charles and Marie Caestecker Concertmaster Chair
Ilana Setapen, First Associate Concertmaster, Thora M. Vervoren First Associate Concertmaster Chair
Jeanyi Kim, Associate Concertmaster
Alexander Ayers
Autumn Chodorowski
Yuka Kadota
Sheena Lan**
Elliot Lee**
Dylana Leung
Kyung Ah Oh
Lijia Phang
Yuanhui Fiona Zheng
SECOND VIOLINS
Jennifer Startt, Principal, Andrea and Woodrow Leung Second Violin Chair
Ji-Yeon Lee, Assistant Principal (2nd chair)
John Bian, Assistant Principal (3rd chair)*
Hyewon Kim, Acting Assistant Principal (3rd chair)
Glenn Asch
Lisa Johnson Fuller
Clay Hancock
Paul Hauer
Janis Sakai**
Mary Terranova
VIOLAS
Robert Levine, Principal, Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Principal Viola Chair
Samantha Rodriguez, Acting Assistant Principal (2nd chair), Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri Viola Chair
Alejandro Duque, Acting Assistant Principal (3rd chair)
Elizabeth Breslin
Georgi Dimitrov
Nathan Hackett
Erin H. Pipal
CELLOS
Susan Babini, Principal, Dorothea C. Mayer Cello Chair
Shinae Ra, Assistant Principal (2nd chair)
Scott Tisdel, Associate Principal Emeritus
Madeleine Kabat
Peter Szczepanek
Peter J. Thomas
Adrien Zitoun
BASSES
Principal, Donald B. Abert Bass Chair
Andrew Raciti, Acting Principal
Nash Tomey, Acting Assistant Principal (2nd chair)
Brittany Conrad
Omar Haffar**
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
Jay Shankar, Assistant Principal, Donald and Ruth P. Taylor Assistant Principal Clarinet Chair
Besnik Abrashi
E-FLAT CLARINET
Jay Shankar
BASS CLARINET
Besnik Abrashi
BASSOONS
Catherine Van Handel, Principal, Muriel C. and John D. Silbar Family Bassoon Chair
Rudi Heinrich, Assistant Principal (3rd chair)
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
Scott Sanders
TRUMPETS
Matthew Ernst, Principal, Walter L. Robb Family Trumpet Chair
David Cohen, Associate Principal, Martin J. Krebs Associate Principal Trumpet Chair
Tim McCarthy, 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, John and Judith Simonitsch Tuba Chair
TIMPANI
Dean Borghesani, Principal
Chris Riggs, Assistant Principal
PERCUSSION
Robert Klieger, Principal
Chris Riggs
PIANO
Melitta S. Pick Endowed Piano Chair
PERSONNEL
Antonio Padilla Denis, Director of Orchestra Personnel
Paris Myers, Hiring Coordinator
LIBRARIANS
Paul Beck, Principal Librarian, James E. Van Ess Principal Librarian Chair
Matthew Geise, Assistant Librarian & Media Archivist
PRODUCTION
Tristan Wallace, Production Manager/ Live Audio
Lisa Sottile, Production Stage Manager
* Leave of Absence 2024.25 Season
** Acting member of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra 2024.25 Season
