A GRAND OPENING Friday, October 1, 2021 at 7:30 pm Saturday, October 2, 2021 at 7:30 pm Sunday, October 3, 2021 at 2:30 pm ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL Ken-David Masur, conductor Aaron Diehl, piano
ERIC NATHAN Opening JAMES B. WILSON Green Fuse GEORGE GERSHWIN/Orch: Grofé, Ferde Rhapsody in Blue Aaron Diehl, piano INTERMISSION
DUKE ELLINGTON/Henderson, Luther and Tyzik, Jeff New World A-Comin’ Aaron Diehl, piano IGOR STRAVINSKY Suite from The Firebird (1919 revision) I. I ntroduction and Dance of the Firebird II. D ance of the Princesses III. I nfernal Dance of King Kastchei IV. Berceuse V. Finale
The 2021.22 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND. The MSO Steinway piano was made possible through a generous gift from MICHAEL AND JEANNE SCHMITZ. Opening is commissioned by the KOUSSEVITZKY FOUNDATION, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour, 30 minutes. 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. MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
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Guest Artist Biographies AARON DIEHL Pianist and composer Aaron Diehl mystifies listeners with his layered artistry. At once temporal and ethereal, his expression transforms the piano into an orchestral vessel in the spirit of beloved predecessors Ahmad Jamal, Erroll Garner, and Jelly Roll Morton. Following three critically-acclaimed leader albums on Mack Avenue Records – and live appearances at historic venues from Jazz at Lincoln Center and The Village Vanguard to New York Philharmonic and the Philharmonie de Paris – the American Pianist Association’s 2011 Cole Porter fellow now focuses his attention on what it means to be present within himself. His forthcoming solo record promises an expansion of that exploration in a setting at once unbound and intimate. Diehl conjures three-dimensional expansion of melody, counterpoint, and movement through time. Rather than choose one sound or another, he invites listeners into the chambered whole of his artistry. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Diehl traveled to New York in 2003, following his success as a finalist in JALC’s Essentially Ellington competition and a subsequent European tour with Wynton Marsalis. His love affair with rub and tension prompted a years-long immersion in distinctive repertoire from Monk and Ravel to Gershwin and William Grant Still. Among other towering figures, Still in particular inspires Diehls’s ongoing curation of Black American composers in his own performance programming, unveiled this past fall at 92nd St. Y. Diehl has enjoyed artistic associations with Wynton Marsalis, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, Buster Williams, Branford Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Philip Glass, and multi GRAMMY award-winning artist Cecile McLorin Salvant. He recently appeared with the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra as featured soloist. Diehl holds a Bachelor of Music in jazz studies from Juilliard. A licensed pilot, when he’s not at the studio or on the road, he’s likely in the air. Follow both his earthbound and aerial exploits via Instagram at www.instagram.com/aaronjdiehl.
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Celebrating Celebrating the the Best Best of of the the Past Past 25 25 Years! Years! Take Me Home: The Music of John Denver Take Me Home: The Music of John Denver Starring Jim Curry Starring Jim Curry
Friday, October 15, 2021 • 7:30 p.m. Friday, October 15, 2021 • 7:30 p.m. Jim Curry presents the ultimate tribute experience, emerging as Jim Curry presents the ultimate tribute experience, emerging as the top performer of John Denver’s music today. the top performer of John Denver’s music today.
Jim Witter’s Best of the Piano Men Jim Witter’s Best of the Piano Men
Friday, October 29, 2021 • 7:30 p.m. Friday, October 29, 2021 • 7:30 p.m. Featuring favorites from all of Jim’s shows, this “Best of” show Featuring favorites from all of Jim’s shows, this “Best of” show will include the music of Billy Joel and Elton John, Simon and will include the music of Billy Joel and Elton John, Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles, and folk favorites of the ’60s and ’70s. Garfunkel, The Beatles, and folk favorites of the ’60s and ’70s.
Christmas with the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra Christmas with the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra
Sunday, December 12, 2021 • 2:30 p.m. Sunday, December 12, 2021 • 2:30 p.m. Celebrate the Christmas season with the most popular and sought Celebrate the Christmas season with the most popular and sought after big band in the world today! after big band in the world today!
Close to You: The Music of the Carpenters Close to You: The Music of the Carpenters
Friday, February 11, 2022 • 7:30 p.m. Friday, February 11, 2022 • 7:30 p.m. Singer Lisa Rock and her band present a rare gem when it comes Singer Lisa Rock and her band present a rare gem when it comes to tribute shows, featuring hits like “We’ve Only Just Begun” and to tribute shows, featuring hits like “We’ve Only Just Begun” and “Rainy Days and Mondays” in their original key. “Rainy Days and Mondays” in their original key.
Stas Venglevski & Frank Almond Stas Venglevski & Frank Almond
Monday, March 21, 2022 • 7:00 p.m. Monday, March 21, 2022 • 7:00 p.m. Back by popular demand, master accordion player Stas Venglevski Back by popular demand, master accordion player Stas Venglevski will perform with violin virtuoso and former MSO Concertmaster will perform with violin virtuoso and former MSO Concertmaster Frank Almond. Frank Almond.
Piano Celebrations Series Piano Celebrations Series
Celebrate the beauty, power, and majesty of the Steinway Celebrate the beauty, power, and majesty of the Steinway grand piano in this series, which will feature these inspiring and grand piano in this series, which will feature these inspiring and engaging performances: engaging performances: Robin Spielberg Wednesday, November 10, 2021 • 7:00 p.m. Robin Spielberg Wednesday, November 10, 2021 • 7:00 p.m. Charlie Albright Wednesday, February 2, 2022 • 7:00 p.m. Charlie Albright Wednesday, February 2, 2022 • 7:00 p.m. David Osborne Wednesday, March 30, 2022 • 7:00 p.m. David Osborne Wednesday, March 30, 2022 • 7:00 p.m.
Center for Arts and Performance | Schwan Concert Hall Center for Arts and Performance | Schwan Concert Hall 8815 W. Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin | Box Office: 414.443.8802 8815 W. Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin | Box Office: 414.443.8802 For more information, tickets, and video samples visit: wlc.edu/guestartistseries For more information, tickets, and video samples visit: wlc.edu/guestartistseries 2021 MSO Ad_6.25x9.25.indd 1 2021 MSO Ad_6.25x9.25.indd 1
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9/9/21 11:33 AM 9/9/21 11:33 AM
Program notes by J. Mark Baker At long last! Welcome back to experiencing music together! A world premiere opens our 2021.22 season, then James B. Wilson explores a Dylan Thomas poem. The MSO’s artistic partner Aaron Diehl serves up jazzy piano music by Gershwin and Ellington, and a suite from Stravinsky’s epic Firebird concludes this joyful program. Eric Nathan
Born 8 December 1983; New York, New York
Opening
Composed: 2020 First performance: 1 October 2021; Milwaukee, Wisconsin Last MSO performance: World premiere Instrumentation: 3 flutes, piccolo, 3 oboes, 3 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 5 horns, 3 trumpets, piccolo trumpet, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (suspended cymbal, sizzle cymbal, crash cymbals, gong, triangle, bass drum, brake drum, spring coil, ratchet, slapstick, vibraphone, chimes, glockenspiel), harp, strings. One flute, oboe, clarinet, 2 horns, trumpet, and 4 violins will be performing in the house. Approximate duration: 8 minutes The 37-year-old American composer Eric Nathan has already accumulated an impressive catalogue of works – orchestral music, chamber ensembles, pieces for solo instruments, vocal music, choral works, and more. He has garnered acclaim internationally through performances by Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic’s Scharoun Ensemble, soprano Dawn Upshaw, violinist Jennifer Koh, at the New York Philharmonic’s 2014 and 2016 Biennials, and at the Tanglewood, Aspen, Aldeburgh, Cabrillo, Yellow Barn, and Chelsea Music festivals. A graduate of Cornell, Indiana, and Yale universities, Nathan currently serves as Associate Professor of Music in Composition-Theory at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The composer has provided the following program notes: I will always remember visiting the Bradley Symphony Center as it was under construction, and standing in the hall in the palpable presence of its silence. The space was unadorned, with the audience sections filled to the ceiling with rows upon rows of scaffolding that seemed to reach across and embrace the hall as it was undergoing its surgery. I felt I “met” the hall privately that day in its vulnerable state, as it transitioned from the historic Warner Grand Theater into its new incarnation as an orchestral concert hall. I imagined what it would sound like when filled with music. A few months later, during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, I saw the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s video performance of Elgar’s “Nimrod” from the Enigma Variations. I had heard the orchestra perform in person for the first time shortly before that, but seeing the players perform their individual parts remotely from their homes made me feel like I was meeting them each in a new way. The video highlighted the intimate and personal nature of orchestral performance, a celebration of the many unique voices that work together. The videos of the players were arranged in a large grid, divided by rows of intersecting lines both separating and uniting the orchestra. The imagery of the lines reminded me of the scaffolding of the hall. MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
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The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra initially invited me to compose Opening to inaugurate its Bradley Symphony Center and to open its 2020.21 concert season. As events in the world unfolded, it soon became clear that the premiere of this work would also serve to accompany a long-awaited return to live performance. I thought of what it may mean for the full orchestra and audience to meet their new hall, and what it may be like for them to return together again for live performance, beginning a new musical journey. Composing this piece was itself a willful act of hope. Opening juxtaposes music of stillness and activity in a series of broadening gestures that unfurl over the course of its eight-minute trajectory. It asks us to listen to ourselves in the space that we inhabit together. Solo players are placed around the hall surrounding the audience, participating in intimate dialogues that reach across to the other soloists and players on the stage. The musicians also resound forcefully, enveloping the hall from all sides in resonance. At times, players in the strings are asked to play their parts asynchronously, as if they are soloists within a larger collective, creating a communal sense of singing. Opening begins with reverence and closes in celebration.
James B. Wilson
Born 1988; Bedfordshire, England
Green Fuse
Composed: 2017 First performance: 10 July 2017; Newmarket, England Last MSO performance: North American premiere Instrumentation: strings Approximate duration: 10 minutes The award-winning British composer James B. Wilson studied at the Royal Academy of Music, and also took frequent lessons with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. His multifaceted compositions explore the rich textural, timbral, and harmonic possibilities of acoustic instruments. He has also penned numerous choral pieces. Green Fuse was commissioned by the Chineke! Orchestra, who gave its first performance at the Cheltenham Festival in 2017. The composer has provided the following information: This work takes as its inspiration a Dylan Thomas poem. In “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower” (1934), Thomas contemplates the nature of the force which drives all things. The poem evokes the strength of this force, but also confronts its uneasy duality, which both move a plant to flower and puts a man in his grave. What is this energy that makes creativity and joy possible, yet becomes life’s destroyer? Thomas conjures many striking images to convey the majesty of nature and the bloom of youth; the incandescent power of our world. They are colored, however, by a pervasive melancholy and inevitability. The poem leaves the question “Why?” unanswered, like a brooding cloud. However, I find a faint hint of consolation, a feeling not of hope but of comfort through discourse: a warmth. “Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood/Shall calm her sores.” The music opens with a burst of color. The green fuse is lit.
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George Gershwin
Born 26 September 1898; Brooklyn, New York Died 11 July 1937; Hollywood, California
Rhapsody in Blue
Composed: 1924 First performance: 12 February 1924; New York, New York Last MSO performance: March 2018; Yaniv Dinur, conductor; Drew Peterson, piano Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; bass clarinet; 2 alto saxophones; 2 tenor saxophones; 2 bassoons; 3 horns; 3 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals; glockenspiel, gong, snare drum, triangle); strings Approximate duration: 16 minutes George Gershwin, along with his lyricist brother Ira, gave us some of the most beloved songs in the history of popular music. “I Got Rhythm,” “Embraceable You,” “The Man I Love,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Fascinating Rhythm” – these are just a few of their contributions to the Great American Songbook. In 1924, Paul Whiteman (1890-1967), the country’s best-known band leader from the 1920s to the 1940s, tapped Gershwin to write a “jazz concerto” for a concert he planned to present at New York’s Aeolian Hall. (Whiteman had been impressed by his earlier collaboration with Gershwin on George White’s Scandals of 1922.) Entitled “An Experiment in Modern Music,” it promised to broaden concertgoers’ perceptions of what serious American music could sound like. Whiteman, who had set the concert date for 12 February, didn’t bother to discuss the project with Gershwin until early January. The 25-year-old tunesmith was up for the task, but told Whiteman a full-length concerto wasn’t feasible, given the time constraints. Gershwin agreed to write a free-form composition, some sort of rhapsody that would feature him as the solo pianist. Whiteman’s band, which would be expanded to 23 musicians, would comprise the orchestra. The young composer committed the first notes to the page on 7 January, completing the piece on 3 February, just over a week before the concert. Gershwin’s customary Broadway process was to write the tunes and to leave the instrumentation to someone else. When he told Whiteman of his unease about the orchestration, the band leader replied, “No problem.” Gershwin notated the score for two pianos—one for the solo part and the other for the orchestral accompaniment, including certain suggestions for instrumentation. Ferde Grofé, Whiteman’s staff arranger since 1920 (nowadays best remembered for his 1931 Grand Canyon Suite), was called in to do the job, working daily to keep up with Gershwin as his composing proceeded. The title of the piece came from Ira, the family wordsmith, who had been inspired by a recent exhibition of James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s paintings. Whistler liked to give abstract titles to his paintings, even the representational ones; for example, the actual title of what we call “Whistler’s Mother” is Arrangement in Gray and Black. This concept appealed to the Gershwin brothers, who came up with Rhapsody in Blue, a moniker that infers “the blues” and, by extension, jazz. And indeed, as Whiteman intended for his “Experiment,” characteristics of both jazz and classical styles are melded into this ever-fresh “concerto,” a work its composer called “a musical kaleidoscope of America.” From its first performance, Rhapsody in Blue was a smashing success, one that catapulted Gershwin into a totally new status as a composer. He was acknowledged everywhere as a major figure in American music and in asserting American influence in Europe.
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Duke [Edward Kennedy] Ellington Born 29 April 1899; Washington, D.C. Died 27 May 1974; New York, New York
New World A-Comin’
Composed: 1943 First performance: 11 December 1943; New York, New York Last MSO performance: MSO premiere Instrumentation: 2 flutes; 2 oboes; English horn; 3 clarinets; bass clarinet; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 4 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (suspended cymbals, drum set, snare drum); jazz bass; strings Approximate duration: 10 minutes Duke Ellington is generally acknowledged as the most significant composer in the history of jazz. He wrote as many as 6,000 works – including popular songs, musical comedies, film scores, sacred music, an opera (Boola, never completed), large-scale suites, and countless threeminute instrumental pieces (for 78 rpm records). The lion’s share of the incredible number of compositions he recorded are his own. An extraordinarily gifted band-leader, he also had a knack for orchestration, combining instrumental colors to create a canvas of great beauty. In 1943, Ellington premiered two works about the experience of Black Americans: Black, Brown, and Beige, traced their collective history; the other, New World A-Comin’, imagined a hopeful future. In his autobiography Music Is My Mistress (1973), the composer said of the latter, “I visualized this new world as a place in the distant future, where there would be no war, no greed, no categorization, no non-believers, where love was unconditional, and no pronoun was good enough for God.” The title of the piece was suggested by L.V. Ottley’s book of the same name, in which the author envisioned improved conditions for Blacks in post-WWII America. New World A-Comin’ emerges as a free-wheeling piano concerto, with a swinging virtuoso part for the soloist and with lush orchestral scoring. Ellington and his 15-piece band gave its first performance at Carnegie Hall. Subsequently, it was orchestrated for symphonic performance. The composer recalled that even Don Shirley, a pianist of prodigious technique, had trouble with a ragtime “Iick” for the left hand.
Igor Stravinsky
Born 17 June 1882; Lomonosov, Russia Died 6 April 1971; New York, New York
Suite from The Firebird (1919 Version)
Composed: 1909-10; rev. 1919 First performance: 25 June 1910; Paris, France (complete ballet) Last MSO performance: January 2016; Christopher Seaman, conductor Instrumentation: 2 flutes; piccolo; 2 oboes; English horn; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; percussion (bass drum, cymbals, tambourine, triangle, xylophone); harp; celeste; piano; strings Approximate duration: 22 minutes With his ballet The Firebird, the 28-year-old Igor Stravinsky found immediate and lasting fame. (“I was once addressed by a man in an American railway dining car, and quite seriously, as ‘Mr. Fireberg,’” a much older Stravinsky related.) Composed between November 1909 and May 1910,
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the ballet was first performed at the Paris Opéra on 25 June 1910. Gabriel Pierné conducted. The next day, the composer was a celebrity. How did this “overnight” popularity come about? In 1906, the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev had taken a major exhibition of Russian art to the Petit Palais in Paris. The following year, he presented five concerts of Russian music in the city, and in 1908 mounted a production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, starring Feodor Chaliapin, at the Opéra. This led to an invitation to return the following year with ballet as well as opera, and thus to the launching of his famous Ballets Russes. The company’s first night, 19 May 1909, was a sensation. For the 1910 season, Diaghilev wanted to present a ballet based on the Russian legend of the Firebird. Unable to convince various composers – including Nikolai Tcherepnin, Alatole Liadov, Alexander Glazunov, and Nikolai Sokolov – to provide a score, the impresario finally turned to the wet-behind-the ears Stravinsky. Diaghilev had first heard Stravinsky’s music two years earlier at a concert in St. Petersburg, immediately asking the young composer to help orchestrate music for the 1909 Parisian ballet season. Thus, Stravinsky was in the right place at the right time. The Firebird was a tremendous success. Stravinsky relates: “The first-night audience at the Paris Opéra glittered indeed… I sat in Diaghilev’s box, where, at intermissions, a stream of celebrities, artists, dowagers, aged Egerias of the Ballet, writers, balletomanes, appeared. I met Proust, Firardoux, Paul Morand, St. John Perse, Paul Claudel, Sarah Bernhardt… I was called to the stage to bow at the conclusion, and was recalled several times. I was still onstage when the final curtain had come down, and I saw coming toward me Diaghilev and a dark man with a double forehead whom he introduced as Claude Debussy. The composer spoke kindly about the music, ending his words with an invitation to dine with him.” Over the years, Stravinsky fashioned three suites from the ballet: in 1911, 1919, and 1945. The latter two reduce the instrumentation of the original ballet, which Stravinsky had called “wastefully large.” A master of orchestral writing, Stravinsky trimmed the number of players without diminishing the music’s bold audacity. “For me, he wrote, the most striking effect in The Firebird was the natural-harmonic string glissando near the beginning, which the bass chord touches off like a Catherine wheel. I was delighted to have discovered this, and I remember my excitement in demonstrating it to [my teacher Rimsky-Korsakov’s] violinist and cellist sons. I remember, too, Richard Strauss’s astonishment when he heard it two years later in Berlin.” In all its various versions, Stravinsky’s score for The Firebird blends rich harmonies, the vigor of Russian folk music, and the orchestral magic he learned from Rimsky-Kosakov – conjuring music of tremendous power and beauty. The movements of the 1919 suite are listed below, with brief commentary. Introduction and Dance of the Firebird Muted cellos and basses plunge us immediately into the world of the fairy tale, intoning a spooky theme associated with Kastchei. We hear a natural-harmonic string glissando, an orchestral device invented by the composer. This “special effect” is produced by the player sliding a finger lightly up and down the string without pressing it to the fingerboard. In Kastchei’s illusory garden, Prince Ivan encounters the Firebird. She is depicted with opulent colors and radiant trills. Dance of the Princesses A khorovod is a Russian folk dance in which the participants are arranged in a circle. Prince Ivan watches the princesses who have been captured by Kastchei performing the dance – to simple, diatonic music. He falls in love with the one destined to be his bride. Infernal Dance of King Kastchei To protect Ivan, the Firebird casts a spell over Kastchei and his notorious henchmen. Stravinsky’s frenetic rhythms force them to dance themselves to exhaustion. MILWAUKEE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
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Berceuse The lullaby of the Firebird lulls the hypnotized Kastchei to sleep. Its melody is played by the bassoon, accompanied by ethereal harmonies in the strings, flute, and harp. Ivan is instructed to destroy the giant egg containing the monster’s soul, and Kastchei’s power vanishes. Finale A solo horn intones the score’s best-known melody, announcing the jubilant arrival of sunlight. Together with Ivan and his betrothed, the rescued captives celebrate with music that swells and rings out in glorious triumph.
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