Prélude pour l’Adoration du Soleil from Les Indes galantes, RCT 44
Entrée de Polymnie from Les Boréades, RCT 31
Chaconne from Dardanus, RCT 35
Tambourins I & II from Dardanus, RCT 35
INTERMISSION
Continued on page 46
VIVALDI’S THE FOUR SEASONS
Continued from page 45
ANTONIO VIVALDI
Le quattro stagioni [The Four Seasons] for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 8, Nos. 1-4
Concerto in F minor, RV 297 “L’inverno” [Winter]
I. Allegro con molto
II. Largo
III. Allegro
Concerto in E major, RV 269, “La primavera” [Spring]
I. Allegro
II. Largo
III. Danza pastorale. Allegro
Concerto in F major, RV 293, “L’autunno” [Fall]
I. Allegro
II. Adagio molto
III. Allegro
Concerto in G minor, RV 315, “L’estate” [Summer]
I. Allegro con molto
II. Adagio e piano – Presto e forte
III. Presto
Rachell Ellen Wong, violin & leader
The 2024.25 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION
The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes. All programs are subject to change.
Guest Artist Biographies
RACHELL ELLEN WONG
Violinist Rachell Ellen Wong made history in 2020 when she was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, becoming the only Baroque artist to receive the honor. Her exceptional blend of technical virtuosity on gut strings, expressive musicianship, and understanding of period performance practices has garnered international critical acclaim and a dedicated following. Named “most approachable virtuoso” by the New York Classical Review, Wong has appeared as a soloist across six continents and has established herself as one of the leading historical performers of her generation, collaborating with esteemed ensembles such as the Academy of Ancient Music, Jupiter Ensemble, Bach Collegium Japan,
The English Concert, and Ruckus, among others. Equally accomplished on the modern violin, Rachell made her first public appearance with Philharmonia Northwest at age 11 and has since performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the Seattle Symphony. Wong also teaches for the Valley of the Moon Music Festival in Sonoma, California.
Wong’s recent appearances include performances with the New World Symphony, Camerata Pacifica, The Kronberg Festival, Ilumina Festival in São Paulo, Reno Chamber Orchestra, The Northwest Sinfonietta, and The Rome Chamber Music Festival. Alongside the exceptional conductor and keyboardist David Belkovski, Wong is co-founder of Twelfth Night. Founded in 2021, Twelfth Night’s engagements include Early Music at Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances at U.C. Berkeley, Caramoor, Chatham Baroque, Arizona Early Music, San Diego Early Music, and Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City. Twelfth Night is also the ensemble in residence for Early Music Seattle.
Among her many awards, Wong was the Grand Prize winner of the inaugural Lillian and Maurice Barbash J.S. Bach Competition. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Wong attended The University of Texas at Austin, Indiana University, and The Juilliard School, where she was a Kovner Fellowship recipient. Wong performs on a Baroque violin from the school of Joachim Tielke, built circa 1700, and a modern violin made in 1953 by Carlo de March. She currently resides in New York City with her two bunnies. For more information about Wong, please visit her website at www.rachellwong.com.
Lucien Knuteson Photography
Guest Artist Biographies
DAVID BELKOVSKI
Born in Skopje, Macedonia, David Belkovski’s journey as a musician has taken him from early ventures into Balkan folk music to the vibrant beginnings of a career as a conductor, soloist, and continuist. Recognized for his vivid programming and interpretations, Belkovski has directed the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Juilliard415, New World Symphony, and Les Violons du Roy. Belkovski’s recent appearances at the Norfolk, Ryedale, and Aix-en-Provence festivals showcased the breadth of his musical talents.
Performing regularly on harpsichord, fortepiano, and modern piano, Belkovski has been awarded first prize in several international and national competitions, including the 2019 Sfzp International Fortepiano Competition, earning him praise for his artistry on both historical and modern keyboards. Belkovski has built strong relationships with some of early music’s most notable directors, serving as assistant conductor to Richard Egarr, Raphaël Pichon, and John Butt; preparing orchestras for William Christie; and as an English Concert fellow to Harry Bicket. Notably, Belkovski held the position of assistant conductor of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.
Alongside international prize-winning violinist Rachell Ellen Wong, Belkovski founded Twelfth Night, a period-instrument ensemble based in New York City. Twelfth Night marked a significant milestone in 2024, making their Carnegie Hall debut with an electrifying operatic showcase featuring Julie Roset and Xenia Puskarz Thomas. Twelfth Night is currently the ensemble-inresidence for Seattle Early Music.
Continuo playing is a cherished part of Belkovski’s creative activity. His recent collaborations include the acclaimed Belgian vocal ensemble, Vox Luminis; the French chamber group, Jupiter Ensemble; and New York’s Trinity Baroque Orchestra.
In addition to performing, Belkovski’s compositions include a commission by Juilliard415. As an instructor, Belkovski coaches vocalists at The Juilliard School and teaches courses and workshops on subjects ranging from continuo performance to historical pedagogy. Belkovski is the recipient of the Robert A. and Patricia S. Levinson Award, the first to receive the fellowship in the field of early music.
Program notes by David Jensen
The 17th century was something of a watershed in the trajectory of Europe’s musical and intellectual development. With the inception of the first public opera house in Venice in 1637 (the same year that saw the publication of René Descartes’ Discourse on the Method), the earliest iteration of the modern orchestra had found its home not just at the courts of the aristocracy, but in the theater. The emerging hegemony of instrumental music met with a renewed interest in the literary narratives of classical antiquity, and with a wealthy ruling class subsidizing their efforts, composers began developing works on a scale inconceivable a century prior, resulting in the burgeoning stylistic diversity of the Baroque theater.
HENRY PURCELL
Born c. 1659; London, England
Died 21 November 1695; London, England
Suite for the Theatre
Composed: 1690 – 1695
Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere
Instrumentation: bassoon; harpsichord; 2 theorbos (1st doubling on guitar); strings
Approximate duration: 11 minutes
Hailed as Orpheus Britannicus, Henry Purcell’s talent lay in molding foreign musical customs into a distinctly English idiom. His father, who sang at the coronation of Charles II, died in 1664, and his uncle Thomas saw to it that Henry received a proper musical education. Thomas arranged for Henry’s admittance to the Chapel Royal, where he began composing — the publication of a song in three-part counterpoint at the age of eight suggests a prodigious talent. He was subsequently granted an apprenticeship to John Hingeston, keeper of the king’s keyboard instruments, and was charged with tuning the organ at Westminster Abbey and copying music. By 1682, he was appointed organist at both Westminster and the Chapel Royal, securing his position as a composer of repute.
With the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, the staunch Puritanism that had prevailed in England for more than a decade subsided, and the theaters, much to the delight of the public, were reopened. Opera was then neither fashionable nor practical to produce in London, leaving Purcell effectively stymied, although he wrote incidental music for about a half dozen plays throughout the 1680s. It was in the last five years of his life that he composed the bulk of his music for the stage, including his “semi-operas,” principally due to his collaborations with England’s first Poet Laureate, John Dryden, who provided the text for Amphitryon, based on the Greek mythological figure, and King Arthur The Fairy Queen and Timon of Athens were both adaptations of Shakespeare, whose work never fell from favor among the British Isles.
Across the pond, French composers had successfully imported the Italian operatic tradition and were producing utterly lavish theatrical works during their Grand Siècle. As a child, JeanPhilippe Rameau entered the Jesuit Collège des Godrans to pursue law, but his disinclination to study (and corollary insistence on composing) resulted in his expulsion. His parents relented and sent him to Milan. He secured a succession of posts as an organist throughout France before ultimately settling in Paris around 1722. One of his most important contributions to the discipline was undoubtedly his Traité de l’harmonie (“Treatise on Harmony”), a revolutionary volume that articulated an understanding of music as an acoustic science, codifying the principles of tonal harmony for generations to come. In 1726, he met the wealthy tax collector Alexandre Le Riche de La Pouplinière, whose private orchestra he would conduct for 22 years. From 1732 onward, his creative endeavors were split between his theoretical dissertations and his operas, upon which his reputation ultimately rests. As an instrumentalist, Rameau had distinguished himself as a master of musical gesture; the dance rhythms that permeated every aspect of Baroque music, along with his highly refined sense of ornamentation and dramatic timing, yielded harmonically innovative music which effused that sense of “right reason” so ardently admired during the Enlightenment. His first foray into opera, at the age of 50, was the tragédie en musique (“musical tragedy”) Hippolyte et Aricie, a result of his introduction to playwright Simon-Joseph Pellegrin by his benefactor. Pellegrin contributed the libretti both to Hippolyte and the enduringly popular Les Indes galantes, an opéra-ballet set in the “Indies” (a generic term that meant little more than an exotic land). Dardanus, Les fêtes d’Hébé, Les surprises de l’Amour, and Les Boréades each drew inspiration from Greek mythology, while Zoroastre, as an allegory for Freemasonry, took its narrative cue from Persian theology.
Program notes by Elaine Schmidt
ANTONIO VIVALDI
Born 4 March 1678; Venice, Italy
Died 28 July 1741; Vienna, Austria
Le quattro stagioni [The Four Seasons] for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 8, Nos. 1-4
Composed: 1718 – 1720
First performance: Unknown; first publication in 1725
Last MSO performance: 17 March 2019; Yaniv Dinur, conductor; Jeanyi Kim, Timothy Klabunde, Ilana Setapen, and Jennifer Startt, violin
Instrumentation: harpsichord; strings
Approximate duration: 37 minutes
Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, who was nicknamed “the red priest” thanks to his mane of curly red hair and the fact that he was an ordained Catholic priest, was a contemporary of J.S. Bach. The two composers shared several attributes, including the extraordinary amount of music they both wrote, the brilliance of that music, and the fact that they were very devout in their faiths. Their legacies are also similar, but for a fact that is hard for us to understand today. Bach published very little of his music, while Vivaldi published a great deal of his. Despite that similarity, both fell rather dramatically out of fashion as the Baroque era gave way to the Classical. Once the elegant, progressive music of the likes of Mozart caught the ears of the public, the interest in earlier music all but disappeared. Bach’s music resurfaced in the mid-1800s thanks to composer Felix Mendelssohn and his sister, Fanny. But Vivaldi’s music remained in the shadows until the 1950s — more than a century after Bach’s music was reintroduced to the public.
In 1926, a group of monks in Turin, Italy, contacted a local musicologist to ask him what price he thought they should pay for a collection of “old music” that had been found in their library. Among other treasures, the crates contained hundreds of pieces by Vivaldi, including concertos, operas, sacred choral works, sonatas, and more, all long presumed lost. The story continues with some of Vivaldi’s music turning up in a private collection and some of it experiencing near misses in World War II bombing raids. In 1947, a Carnegie Hall concert featured portions of The Four Seasons, followed by an all-Vivaldi series in 1951. Today, Vivaldi is considered one of the world’s most famous composers, thanks in part to the more than 2,000 recordings of his music, all of which have been made in and after the 1950s.
The jaw-dropping story of the rediscovery of Vivaldi’s music certainly adds to the delight of hearing it today. It also explains why musicologists are more than willing to crawl around in dusty attics, castles, and libraries in search of the next motherlode of forgotten, but soon-to-befamous, music.
Vivaldi intended The Four Seasons to be performed in seasonal order, beginning with spring. Supporting his ahead-of-its-time idea of program music, he wrote a sonnet for each of the seasons. The sonnets appear in the MSO’s The Language of Song, providing a road map of sorts for the concertos. They can be accessed at mso.org/concerts/program_notes/ should you want to follow along during the concert. Please remember to silence your device.
La primavera [Spring]
Allegro
Spring, and along with it the entire series of concertos, opens with the sounds of birds, interrupted by a thunderstorm. The storm ends, allowing the birds to take up their songs again.
Largo
In a flower-filled meadow, shaded by tree branches swaying in the breeze, a goat-herd naps with his dog beside him.
Allegro
Nymphs and shepherds dance merrily to the sounds of bagpipes, reveling in the fresh greenery and brilliant colors of spring.
L’estate [Summer]
Allegro con molto
The sun beats relentlessly on drowsy shepherds and their flocks and on the parched pines nearby. Once again, the listener hears birds, this time the cuckoo, turtle dove, and finch. A delicate breeze is suddenly pushed aside by gusts of cold wind from the north, frightening the shepherds and threatening heavy weather on the way.
Adagio e piano — presto e forte
Wide awake, beneath the violence of lightning and thunder, the shepherds are surrounded by buzzing flies and gnats.
Presto
The north wind keeps its promise as the heavens open and pelt the shepherds and their flocks with hail.
L’autunno [Autumn]
Allegro
Peasants celebrate the finish of the harvest, with wine flowing freely.
Adagio molto
As the singing and dancing gradually give way to the night, the peasants enjoy cool breezes, eventually falling into deep, contented sleep.
Allegro
Dawn brings the hunt, complete with dogs, horn, and related pandemonium. Hunters chase the harried prey until, injured and terrified, it dies.
L’inverno [Winter]
Allegro con molto
Snow and biting cold winds have people shivering, moving at a run, stamping their feet, and chattering their teeth.
Largo
Some people rest contentedly beside a cozy hearth, while those who are outside find themselves drenched by a cold pouring rain.
Allegro
Vivaldi turns to writing in first person here, describing how he and others are mincing along an icy path, quite afraid of falling. When the inevitable fall occurs, Vivaldi and his companions hurry to get back to their feet and then hurry to get clear of the ice. He describes, once back home, the feeling of frigid winds making their way through locked and bolted doors, yet he ends the sonnet with, “This is winter — but one with joy.”
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
Shin 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
Gabriela Lara
Janis Sakai**
Mary Terranova
VIOLAS
Robert Levine, Principal, Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Principal Viola Chair
Georgi Dimitrov, Assistant Principal (2nd chair), Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri Viola Chair
Samantha Rodriguez, Assistant Principal (3rd chair)
Elizabeth Breslin
Alejandro Duque
Nathan Hackett
Erin H. Pipal
CELLOS
Susan Babini, Principal, Dorothea C. Mayer Cello Chair
Shinae Ra, Acting Assistant Principal (2nd chair)
Scott Tisdel, Associate Principal Emeritus
Madeleine Kabat
Peter Szczepanek
Peter J. Thomas
Adrien Zitoun
BASSES
Jon McCullough-Benner, 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
