2020 SEASON
MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA The Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) gave its inaugural performance at Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS (DFP) on 17 August 1998. With the initial search for outstanding musicians involving a worldwide audition tour, the result was a symphony orchestra made up of musicians from 25 nations, including Malaysians, a remarkable example of harmony among different cultures and nationalities. A host of internationally-acclaimed musicians have performed with the MPO including Lorin Maazel, Sir Neville Marriner, Yehudi Menuhin, Joshua Bell, Harry Connick Jr., JosĂŠ Carreras, Andrea Bocelli, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Chris Botti and Branford Marsalis, many of whom have praised the MPO for its fine musical qualities and vitality. With each new season, the MPO continues to present an exciting programme of orchestral music drawn from over three centuries, as well as the crowd-pleasing concert series. Its versatility transcends genres, from classical masterpieces to film music, pop, jazz, traditional, contemporary and commissioned works.
The MPO regularly performs in major cities of Malaysia. Internationally, it has toured Singapore (1999, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2018), Japan (2001, 2009 and 2017), Korea (2001), Australia (2004), China (2006 and 2019), Taiwan (2007) and Vietnam (2013). The MPO has also released 21 commercial CDs. Its Education and Outreach Programme (ENCOUNTER) reaches beyond the concert platform to develop musical awareness and appreciation through dedicated activities at such diverse venues as schools, colleges, hospitals and community centres. The MPO’s commitment to furthering musical interest in the nation has been the creation of the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (MPYO); its debut concert at DFP in 2007 was followed by a Peninsula Malaysia tour. The MPYO has also performed in Sabah and Sarawak, Singapore, Brisbane, Hong Kong and Jakarta. The MPO remains steadfast in its mission to share the depth, power and beauty of great music. Its main benefactor is PETRONAS and its patron is YABhg. Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah Haji Mohd Ali.
e d a n e r e S to y n o h p m Sy Digital Live Premier concert Fri 18 September 2020
Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra Naohisa Furusawa, conductor Fri 25 Sep 2020 PROGRAMME
Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra ELGAR Serenade for strings 13mins Naohisa Furusawa, conductor BEETHOVEN Symphony No.4 in Bb major 32mins PROGRAMME BERLIOZ ELGAR for Strings 13mins mins SymphonieSerenade Fantastique, Op. 14 49 BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 4 in Bb major 32 mins
All details are correct at time of publishing. Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS reserves the right to vary without notice the artists and/or repertoire as necessary. Copyright Š 2020 by Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS (Co. No. 462692-X). All rights reserved. No part of this programme may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the copyright owners.
NAOHISA FURUSAWA conductor
Naohisa Furusawa has been a member of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) double bass section since 2003. Born in Tokyo in 1973, he started to play the violin when he was 4 and joined his junior high school orchestra as a double bass player at 12; his first conducting experience was with this orchestra. Later, he studied double bass with Prof. Nobuo Shiga and conducting with Prof. Kazue Kamiya at Tokyo’s Toho Gakuen School of Music, and with Prof. Frank Reinecke at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. Furusawa has performed as a double bass player with the NHK Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony and other orchestras, under the direction of conductors including Seiji Ozawa, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Lorin Maazel, Herbert Blomstedt, Pierre Boulez and Valery Gergiev. He conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony eight times with Tokyo’s MAX Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2015, he conducted Mahler’s Second Symphony with the MAX Philharmonic to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of Second World War. Furusawa was Resident Conductor of the MPO from 2016 - 2019. He also serves as conductor of the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and cover conductor for Mark Wigglesworth, Roberto Abbado, Stéphane Denève, Jun Märkl and Vladimir Ashkenazy. He conducted the MPO in Tokyo for the Asia Orchestra Week 2017, a festival under Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs. He also conducted the MPO and Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra at Iwaki Performing Arts Center. He has conducted many youth ensembles including the MPO’s Encounter Training Ensemble and the Miri Tutti Project in East Malaysia as part of the MPO’s Education and Outreach Programme.
This programme offers masterpieces by two composers who, unlike many great composers, were not prodigies or even early achievers. Neither Elgar nor Beethoven produced their first enduring works until they were well into their twenties. Purely by coincidence, Elgar’s Serenade and Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony were written by men in their mid-thirties (Elgar was 35, Beethoven 36). The gentle, almost-pastoral character of Elgar’s Serenade is contrasted with the headstrong, at times wildly energetic Fourth Symphoy of Beethoven,the composer who introduced a whole new physiognomy into symphonic writing. EDWARD ELGAR (1857-1934) Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op. 20 (1892)
I. Allegro piacevole II. Larghetto III. Allegretto The Background
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Precocity among classical composers is not a rare occurrence; one need think only of Mozart, Schubert, Weber, Mendelssohn and Saint-Saëns to start the list rolling. But Elgar is not a name that springs to mind in this context. His first significant work did not appear until 1889 (the Froissart Overture), and real fame did not come until nearly the turn of the century when Elgar was already past forty, an age that Mozart, Schubert, Weber and Mendelssohn never even lived to see. Elgar’s boyhood was nevertheless steeped in music – his father, in addition to owning a music shop, tuned pianos and played the organ at church. Edward too learned these instruments, as well as the violin, viola, cello and bassoon. Of all these, it was the violin for which he held a special love. He played in many amateur orchestras and for a time planned on a solo career. Hence, it is not surprising to find a rather large number of works for violin and for strings dating from his early years as a composer. When Elgar learned that his talents as a violinist were insufficient in this regard, he resolved instead to become a firstclass composer.
The Music
wikipedia.org Elgar's statue at the end of Worcester High Street stands facing the cathedral
The lovely Serenade for Strings, written in his thirty-fifth year (1892), is Elgar’s earliest work that remains in the standard repertory and the first in which he reveals his truly distinctive musical voice. Though small in scale, it is beautifully crafted, is imbued with a gentle melancholy and exhibits so many of the fingerprints of style we find in the later masterpieces: a fondness for upward sweeps, frequent use of the interval of the falling seventh, the profusion of detailed dynamic markings in the score, an overall nobility of expression (especially in the sublime second movement, which is a true precursor of “Nimrod” in the Enigma Variations) and the assured technical skill with which he writes for strings. Ten years later, with such masterpieces as the Enigma Variations, the Introduction and Allegro and The Dream of Gerontius behind him, Elgar could still say of his Serenade, “I like it as well as anything I have done”.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major, Op. 60 (1806)
I. Adagio ̶ Allegro vivace II. Adagio III. Allegro vivace ̶ Un poco meno allegro ̶ Allegro vivace IV. Allegro ma non troppo
The Background “A slender Grecian maiden between two Norse giants” is Robert Schumann’s oft-quoted description of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony. It was the Fourth’s accident of history that placed it between those towering creations, the Third (Eroica) and Fifth Symphonies, and there is no denying that the Fourth exists on a somewhat less exalted plane than its neighbors. But there are different kinds of greatness and in performance the Fourth invariably stimulates the degree of esthetic satisfaction and listening pleasure reserved for what we call “masterpieces”.
freepik.com Beethoven's statue front bonn main post-office
It may lack the implicit theme of grandiose, heroic struggle that characterizes the Third and Fifth Symphonies, but “for all its lack of “great issues”, writes David Cairns, “the Fourth contains as much drama as do the symphonies on either side … a conflict and eventual reconciliation between, on the one hand, broad lyricism and the long singing line, and on the other, rhythmic insistence, violent accents and syncopation. In energy, the Fourth is inferior to none”. The first performance, a private one, took place in the Viennese town house of Prince Lobkowitz on 15 March, 1807, with Beethoven conducting.
The Fourth is Beethoven’s only symphony for which we have no surviving sketchbook to reveal the composer’s developing compositional process. This represents a particularly frustrating loss since the perceptive listener can find so many elements in common with the Fifth Symphony: the very opening of the Fourth outlines softly and mysteriously the identical melodic shape of the famous “Da-Da-Da-DAH; Da- Da-Da-DAH” of the Fifth; the long, slow crescendo over a single chord that brings the Fifth’s third movement into the finale finds its counterpart in the Fourth Symphony’s first movement just prior to the recapitulation; virtuosic use of the lower instruments of the orchestra; the persistent use of the “Fate” motif throughout; and other features link the two symphonies. The Music The symphony’s long, dark, mysterious opening offers no clue to the buoyancy, joy and ebullience that otherwise mark the work. When the main Allegro section finally arrives, the effect is not unlike that of the emergence from a tunnel, from darkness into light. The first theme is announced immediately in the violins, a theme that will by turns sound airy and graceful or robust and sturdy, depending on the orchestration. wikipedia.org
The second theme shows Beethoven at his most playful: an idea passes through the bassoon, then the oboe and finally the flute before finding its lyrical conclusion in the violins. The clarinet, neglected in this passage, gets to start the closing theme —̶ a lyrical duet-dialogue with bassoon. The development and recapitulation are conventionally laid out. Over a rhythmic pattern that pervades much of the movement, the ravishing principal theme of the Adagio unfolds with infinite grace and rarefied beauty. It is the kind of line, so simple yet so exquisite, that brings to mind the themes of Mozartian slow movements. Berlioz called it “angelic and of irresistible tenderness”. An equally haunting spell is woven by the solo clarinet in the second theme as the line rises and falls in gentle caresses. Yet, for all its lyricism, moments of insistent rhythmic repetition remind us that the dramatic tension of this music lies largely in the very contrast of those two elements, melody and rhythm. Beethoven called the bumptious, frolicsome third movement a Menuetto, but it is a scherzo in all but name. The whiplash alternations of loud and soft, the stabbing accents, the rapid tempo and motoric energy all point to a Beethoven scherzo. Actually, it is a double scherzo, for the contrasting, quaintly rustic Trio section, featuring woodwind choir, occurs twice, resulting in the basic form of Scherzo-Trio-Scherzo-Trio-Scherzo. In Beethoven’s typically rough good humour, the final repetition of the Scherzo is abruptly truncated by a brief, three-bar call from the horns that, as one writer (Donald Francis Tovey) put it, “blow the whole movement away”. The finale is a wonderful mix of quicksilver, lightning exuberance, coiled energy and perpetual motion. In the opening theme, moto perpetuo sixteenth notes alternate with elegant legato phrases, and throughout there is a systematic contrast between delicate, airy pianissimo and mock-furious fortissimo. Grand orchestral climaxes are built up, only to dissolve in wisps of elusive melody. With a final, masterful gesture, Beethoven reconciles the two conflicting principles of the symphony: rhythm and melody become one. Formerly a horn player in the Montreal Symphony, Robert Markow now writes programme notes for that orchestra and for many other musical organizations in North America and Asia. He taught at Montreal's McGill University for many years, has led music tours abroad, and writes for many leading classical music journals, including American Record Guide, Fanfare, Opera, Opera News, The Strad and Symphony. He travels regularly to Europe, Asia and Australia in search of musical stimulation.
MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR LAUREATE Kees Bakels
VIOLA Co-Principal Gábor Mokány
RESIDENT CONDUCTOR Gerard Salonga
Ong Lin Kern Sun Yuan Fan Ran Thian Ai Wen Celina Baran
FIRST VIOLIN Co-Concertmaster Peter Daniš Principal Ming Goh Co-Principal Zhenzhen Liang Maho Daniš Martijn Noomen Sherwin Thia Runa Baagöe Miroslav Daniš Evgeny Kaplan Marcel Andriesii Tan Ka Ming Petia Davies SECOND VIOLIN Section Principal Timothy Peters Assistant Principal Luisa Theis Stefan Kocsis Anastasia Kiseleva Catalina Alvarez Ionuț Mazareanu Chia-Nan Hung Yanbo Zhao Ling Yunzhi Robert Kopelman
CELLO Co-Principal Csaba Körös Assistant Principal Steven Retallick Sub-Principal Mátyás Major Gerald Davis Laurențiu Gherman Julie Dessureault Elizabeth Tan Suyin Sejla Simon Lee Seulki DOUBLE BASS Section Principal Wolfgang Steike Jun-Hee Chae Naohisa Furusawa Raffael Bietenhader Andreas Dehner FLUTE Co-Principal Yukako Yamamoto Sub-Principal Rachel Jenkyns PICCOLO Principal Sonia Croucher OBOE Section Principal Simon Emes COR ANGLAIS Principal Niels Dittmann
Note: Sectional string players are rotated within their sections.
CLARINET Section Principal Gonzalo Esteban Co-Principal David Dias da Silva Sub-Principal Matthew Larsen BASS CLARINET Principal Chris Bosco BASSOON Section Principal Alexandar Lenkov Sub-Principal Denis Plangger CONTRABASSOON Principal Vladimir Stoyanov HORN Section Principal Grzegorz Curyła Co-Principal James Schumacher Sub-Principals Laurence Davies Kartik Alan Jairamin Assistant Principal Sim Chee Ghee TRUMPET Section Principal Sergio Pacheco Co-Principal William Theis Sub-Principal Jeffrey Missal Assistant Principal Matthew Dempsey
TROMBONE Section Principal Marques Young Co-Principal Fernando Borja TIMPANI Section Principal Matthew Thomas PERCUSSION Section Principal Matthew Prendergast Sub-Principals Joshua Vonderheide Tan Su Yin HARP Principals Tan Keng Hong
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DEWAN FILHARMONIK PETRONAS Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS (DFP) is Malaysia’s first concert hall dedicated to classical music and home to the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO). Located at the PETRONAS Twin Towers, it was officially opened on 17 August 1998 by the Patron of the MPO, YABhg. Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah Haji Mohd Ali and Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. Designed by Cesar Pelli, the hall takes its inspiration from the traditional shoe-box shape of the great 19th century European concert halls with the magnificent Klais Pipe Organ providing a spectacular backdrop to the stage. The hall seats 920 people at one time which includes box seats, corporate suites and a royal suite. Acoustics experts Kirkegaard & Associates have incorporated unique acoustical devices into its design to maximize the hall’s natural qualities. DFP plays an integral part in the music and cultural landscape of the city of Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia. It continues to enthral audiences since the day it first opened its doors. World renowned orchestras that have performed here include the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, BBC Symphony and Vienna Symphony.
Beyond classical music, DFP has hosted ensembles of jazz and world music genres such as the Count Basie Orchestra, Yellowjackets, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Mezzoforte, Igudesman & Joo, Pink Martini and Gotan Project. International superstars who have graced the stage are Harry Connick Jr., Diana Krall, Anoushka Shankar, Laura Fygi, Zakir Hussain, Larry Carlton, Harvey Malaihollo, Ruth Sahanaya and Judika. Among renowned Malaysian artists who have mesmerized audiences at DFP include SM Salim, Sheila Majid, M Nasir, Siti Nurhaliza, Jamal Abdillah, Khadijah Ibrahim, Ramli Sarip, Ella, Yuna, Faizal Tahir, Dayang Nurfaizah and Misha Omar. It also provides the platform for the talents of young Malaysians from the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (MPYO). DFP’s success is attributed to its exceptional architectural design, superior acoustics and recording studio modelled after the legendary Abbey Road Studios. As the first purpose-built concert hall in Malaysia, DFP will continue to provide Malaysians with world-class music experiences through innovative programmes and repertoire every season.
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