RACHMANINOFF PIANO & LIVELY DANCE

MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Friday, February 17, 2023 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, February 18, 2023 at 7:30 pm

Sunday, February 19, 2023 at 2:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Markus Stenz, conductor

Stephen Hough, piano

PROGRAM

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF

Concerto No. 2 in C minor for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 18

I. Moderato

II. Adagio sostenuto

III. Allegro scherzando Stephen Hough, piano

INTERMISSION

BÉLA BARTÓK

Dance Suite, Sz 77

I. Moderato

II. Allegro molto

III. Allegro vivace

IV. Molto tranquillo

V. Comodo

VI. Finale: Allegro

GEORGES BIZET/E. Guirard

Carmen Suite

Prélude and Aragonaise

Intermezzo

Séguedille

Nocturne

Les Toréadors

Habañera

Danse Bohème

The MSO Steinway Piano was made possible through a generous gift from MICHAEL AND JEANNE SCHMITZ. The 2022.23 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

MARKUS STENZ

MARKUS STENZ

Markus Stenz has held several high-profile positions including principal conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (2012-2019), principal guest conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (2015-2019), and conductor-inresidence of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra (2016-2021). He was general music director of the City of Cologne and GürzenichKapellmeister for 11 years, conducting Mozart’s Don Giovanni; Wagner’s Ring cycle, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; Janáček’s Jenůfa and Katya Kábanová; and Eötvös’s Love and other Demons.

He made his opera debut in 1988 at Teatro La Fenice in Venice. After a recent, and highly successful Mozart and Strauss concert, he returned last season to conduct two concert weeks with repertoire including Mozart, Schumann, and Wagner and will return this season and beyond for productions of Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer and Berg’s Wozzeck

After appearing recently with the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Britten’s Death in Venice, Stenz returned last season to conduct Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and this season, he will conduct Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann.

The 2022.23 season also sees Stenz’s debut with the Orchestra dell’Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He is delighted to return to the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra as well as to three orchestras where he previously held positions: Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln. Elsewhere in Europe, he will conduct a Wagner evening with Nina Stemme in Budapest, as well the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at Linz Brucknerfest and the Badische Staatskapelle Karlsruhe. In the U.S., he makes his debut with the Detroit Symphony and Milwaukee Symphony orchestras and returns to the Oregon Symphony and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Stenz’s most recent CD release was Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, and other recent highlights include concerts with the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dortmund and Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestras, Orchestre National de Lyon, Bergen Philharmonic, and Barcelona Symphony Orchestra.

Markus Stenz appears by arrangement with Kirshbaum Associates, Inc., 307 Seventh, Ste. 506, New York, NY 10001. www.kirshbaumassociates.com.

STEPHEN HOUGH

STEPHEN HOUGH

Named by The Economist as one of Twenty Living Polymaths, Sir Stephen Hough combines a distinguished career and a longstanding international following as a pianist with those of composer and writer. The first classical pianist to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honors 2014 and was awarded a Knighthood for Services to Music in the Queen’s Birthday honors 2022.

In the 2022.23 season, Hough performs over 90 concerts across five continents. Recent and upcoming orchestral highlights include return appearances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, Orchestre National de Fance, Vienna Symphony, London Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and the Finnish Radio, as well as with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, the St. Louis, Cincinnati, Detroit and Houston symphonies, and the New York Philharmonic.

Hough’s extensive discography of over 60 CDs on the Hyperion label has garnered international awards including the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, several Grammy nominations, and eight Gramophone Awards including Record of the Year and the Gold Disc. His recording of Mompou’s Musica callada will be released in 2023.

As a composer, Hough has written for orchestra, choir, chamber ensemble, and solo piano. Recent commissions include the commissioned work for the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and his String Quartet No. 1 Les Six Recontres commissioned by the Takacs Quartet. The quartet was recorded by Hyperion and is to be released in January 2023.

As a writer, Hough’s memoir Enough: Scenes from Childhood, will be published by Faber & Faber in Spring 2023. It follows his collection of essays Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More, published by Faber & Faber in London and Farrar, Straus and Giroux in New York, which won a 2020 Royal Philharmonic Society Award. He has also been published by the New York Times and in London in The Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, and the Evening Standard, and for seven years, he wrote more than six hundred articles for his blog in The Telegraph.

Hough resides in London and is an honorary member of the Royal Philharmonic Society, a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music and at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, holds the International Chair of Piano Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, and is on the faculty of The Juilliard School in New York.

Program notes by J. Mark Baker

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF

Born 1 April 1873; Semyonovo, Russia / Died 28 March 1943; Beverly Hills, California

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Opus 18

Composed: 1900-01

First performance: 9 November 1901; Moscow, Russia

Last MSO performance: September 2018; Ken-David Masur, conductor; Boris Giltburg, piano

Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals); strings

Approximate duration: 33 minutes

Rachmaninoff’s exquisitely tuneful Opus 18 is loved by concertgoers the world over. Several of its melodies have been used for popular songs, and its music as a whole is often heard in movie soundtracks. Given this acclaim, it’s a bit surprising to realize that the composer penned this concerto at a low point in his life. In 1897, the St. Petersburg premiere of his First Symphony was an unmitigated disaster, largely due to Alexander Glazunov’s poor conducting.

Rachmaninoff fell into a deep depression and for almost three years was unable to set pen to paper. He made a living by conducting, teaching, and playing the occasional piano recital. In 1900, Rachmaninoff was urged by his aunt Varvara to seek the help of Nicolai Dahl, a doctor who had studied hypnosis. The composer later wrote in his memoirs: “Day after day I heard the same hypnotic formula while I lay half asleep in Dahl’s armchair: ‘You will begin to write your concerto. You will work with great ease. The music will be excellent.’ Incredible as it may sound, this cure really helped me.”

Following his successful recovery, Rachmaninoff set to work on his long-delayed Piano Concerto No. 2, a work he had promised to write for a concert tour to England. Its Moscow premiere, with the 28-year-old composer as soloist, was favorably received. The top of the first page bears the simple dedication: À Monsieur N. Dahl

Following a series of solemn chords in the piano, the first of Rachmaninoff’s beguiling melodies – characterized by a palpable Russian soulfulness – is heard in the strings. This theme both stands out against, and blends with, the passionate warmth of the one that follows, introduced by the soloist. A mood of gentle introspection opens the Adagio sostenuto, as the pianist lends elegant accompaniment to the dreamy melody of the flute and clarinet. Near the movement’s end, a whirlwind of notes by the pianist leads to an affecting cadenza. The movement concludes with the same almost-religious tranquility with which it began.

The vigorous first theme of the Allegro scherzando is preceded by a march-like orchestral introduction and brilliant passages from the soloist. The composer has reserved an ace up his sleeve, however: a voluptuous melody “sung” by the orchestra. In 1945, this theme was popularized as the hit song “Full Moon and Empty Arms.” After a protracted development of the first theme, this familiar tune returns to bring Rachmaninoff’s much-loved Opus 18 to its rapturous close.

BÉLA BARTÓK

BÉLA BARTÓK

Born 25 March 1881; Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary (now Sînnicolau Mare, Romania) / Died 26 September 1945; New York, New York

Dance Suite, Sz 77

Composed: 1923

First performance: 19 November 1923; Budapest, Hungary

Last MSO performance: MSO premiere

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (1st and 2nd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes (2nd doubling on English horn); 2 clarinets (2nd doubling on bass clarinet) 2 bassoons (2nd doubling on contrabassoon); 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 2 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, snare drum, tam tam, tenor drum, triangle); celeste; piano; harp; strings

Approximate duration: 16 minutes

Without question, Béla Bartók is an eminent force in the history of 20th-century music, the most important musical figure to have come out of Eastern Europe. His works comprise core repertoire in numerous genres – orchestral music, piano works, string quartets and other chamber music, concertos, ballets, songs and choral music, and an astounding opera (Bluebeard’s Castle) – and have earned him a reputation as Hungary’s greatest composer. An accomplished pianist and an ethnomusicologist as well as a composer, Bartók was responsible – with his friend Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) – for revitalizing scholarly interest in Hungarian folk music. With his Edison gramophone in tow, he traveled throughout the provincial areas of his native land, recording the peasantry as they sang the old songs. These were, of course, duly set down in musical notation. As a result, his music became infused with the rural culture of both Hungary and Romania, even as he simultaneously engaged with the Western art music tradition.

Bartók’s Dance Suite was commissioned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the union of the Danube-straddling cities of Buda and Pest. Completed in August 1923, its melodies are original, but the influence of his musicological research is apparent. The composer stated that the first and fourth movements show an Arabic character, the second and third have a Hungarian personality, the fifth is “primitive” Romanian; the finale gathers the five dances together. Music scholar Paul Griffiths has suggested that the Suite carries the weight of a symphony, and that its six main sections might be perceived as follows: introduction, first movement, scherzo, slow movement, second scherzo, finale.

When Bartók sat down to write the Suite, it had been several years since he had contributed to the orchestral concert repertoire. Nevertheless, it was a smashing success at its premiere, instantly becoming one of his most popular works. In its first year, Sz 77 received over 50 performances in Germany alone and continues to be an audience favorite to this very day.

GEORGES BIZET

GEORGES BIZET

Born 25 October 1838; Paris, France / Died 3 June 1875; Bougival, France

Carmen Suite

Composed: 1873-74 (opera); 1882 & 1889 (suites)

First performance: 3 March 1875; Paris, France (opera)

Last MSO performance: October 2019; Jun Märkl, conductor

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes (2nd doubling on English horn); 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 2 trombones; bass trombone; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, castanets, cymbals, snare drum, tambourine, triangle); harp; strings

Approximate duration: 20 minutes

Georges Bizet was something of a musical prodigy. At age four, his mother – herself a talented pianist – taught him to read music even as she taught him the alphabet. Soon after, he formed the habit of listening through the door while his father taught voice lessons. By age nine, young Georges had ingested all the musical instruction his parents had to offer and was granted a special dispensation to enter the Paris Conservatoire. While there, he wrote his Symphony in C (1855) – at age 17 – and the following year he won the Prix de Rome, for his one-act operetta Le Docteur Miracle (1856).

Throughout his too-short life, Bizet composed songs, choral music, and piano music. (An exceptional pianist, he could have had a concert career, had he chosen that path.) We remember him today chiefly as an opera composer, and then only through two stage works, The Pearl Fishers and Carmen. At the time of their premieres, they were poorly received. Carmen’s failure before the public cast Bizet into a deep depression, one that probably contributed to his early death, by heart attack, at age 36. Nowadays, Carmen is one of the most popular works in the operatic canon. With its eminently hummable tunes, its exotic setting (Seville, 1820), and its well-known story of love, lust, betrayal, and murder, it never fails to please.

Years after Bizet’s death, his close friend Ernest Guiraud (1837-1892) compiled two suites of excerpts, retaining the composer’s original orchestration. On today’s concert, we’ll hear excerpts from both, beginning with music from the opera’s prelude, sounding the ominous “fate” theme. The swirling Aragonaise is taken from the prelude to Act 4, as crowds arrive for a parade and a bullfight. The Intermezzo, with its lyrical woodwind solos, opens Act 3; the curtain rises on the smugglers’ camp in a picturesque spot among rocks on a mountain. An orchestral arrangement of Carmen’s Act 1 Seguidille follows; in it, she convinces Don José to set her free – she has been arrested for fighting with another woman, and he has been tasked with taking her to jail – and to join her later at the tavern of her friend Lillas Pastia.

The Nocturne is a transcription of Micaëla’s Act 3 aria, “Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante” [I say that nothing frightens me], here beguillingly sung by the concertmaster’s violin. Les Toréador is the music that opens the opera, preceding the “fate” motif; those two themes will be heard again at the end of the opera, jarringly juxtaposed. Here, we also get a whiff of the bullfighter Escamillo’s song, one of the best-known melodies in all opera. Another of “opera’s greatest hits” follows, Carmen’s seductive Habañera, “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” [Love is a rebellious bird]. Act 2 begins with Danse Bohème, as two gypsy girls dance before a crowd of soldiers in Lilias Pastia’s tavern, accompanied by the sound of the guitar and the tambourine. What fun!