Programme Notes
Thu 3 October 2024 • 20.15
The Torment of Saint Anthony (left) and Saint Anthony with Saint Paul the Hermit: panels of the Isenheim altarpiece (1511–17) by Matthias Grünewald. Coll. Musée Unterlinden Colmar
PROGRAMME
Blaník. Omslagillustratie door Antonín König voor de eerste uitgave van Smetana’s partituur (1894) Richard-Strauss-Institut
conductor Joana Mallwitz
piano Leif Ove Andsnes
Sergei Prokofjev (1891-1953)
Overture War and Peace (1941–42)
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943)
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, op 30 (1909)
• Allegro ma non tanto
• Intermezzo: adagio
• Finale: alla breve
Intermission
Paul Hindemith (1895–1963)
Symphony Mathis der Maler (1934)
• Engelkonzert
• Grablegung
• Versuchung des heiligen Antonius
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
La valse, poème chorégraphique (1919–20)
Einde concert circa 22.30 uur
Vorige uitvoeringen door ons orkest: Prokofjev Ouverture Oorlog en vrede: eerste uitvoering
Rachmaninoff Pianoconcert nr. 3: jun 2023 (tournee), piano Mao Fujita, dirigent Lahav Shani
Hindemith: Symfonie Mathis der Maler: sep 2008, dirigent Valery Gergiev
Ravel La valse: aug 2024 (tournee), dirigent Lahav Shani
Een uur voor aanvang van het concert geeft Sam Wamper een inleiding op het programma, toegang € 7,50. Kaartjes zijn aan de zaal te verkrijgen tegen pinbetaling. Voor Vrienden is de inleiding gratis.
Cover: Foto Piotr Hamryszczak
Sergei Rachmaninoff proofreading the score of his Piano Concerto No. 3, 1910. Photo: Public Domain
Living in hope and fear
World peace seemed still within grasp in 1909, when Sergei Rachmaninoff composed his Third Piano Concerto. Less than half a century and two world wars later, such a dream was in tatters. This concert transports us back to those turbulent times, with Maurice Ravel, Paul Hindemith and Sergei Prokofiev acting as war correspondents.
Peace and War
‘On June 22, a warm sunny morning, I was sitting at my desk when suddenly the watchman’s wife appeared, looking greatly upset. “The Germans have invaded us,” she gasped. “They say they’re bombing our cities.”’ The year was 1941. The world was at war and now the Soviet Union had been invaded. In a radio broadcast, party leader Stalin called on his ‘good friends, brothers and sisters’ to defend the motherland to the end. Artists were not left out. Events planted an idea for a suitably themed opera in Prokofiev’s head. War and Peace, based on Tolstoy’s epic novel, in which the downtrodden, disillusioned Prince Alexei finds redemption on his deathbed through the love he shares with Natasha. Peace against a backdrop of war. Prokofiev had a clear vision of it all, the sketch for the libretto already written. However, the German invasion altered the concept of his opera substantially: ‘Those pages recounting the Russian people’s struggle against Napoleon’s
hordes in 1812 […] seemed especially close. It was clear that precisely those pages should lie at the basis of the opera.’ Thus became War and Peace a patriotic work. Or rather ‘Peace and War’, since the first seven scenes deal with the peaceful world of aristocratic circles; the final six with the battlefield. The overture is a pure embodiment of heroism and passion, conveyed by the horn and violin respectively.
Passion and melancholy
In October 1909 Sergei Rachmaninoff travelled to the United States for a long concert tour. Packed inside his suitcase was a brand new, just completed piano concerto – his Third. Its premiere in New York, conducted by Walter Damrosch, with the composer himself at the piano, was triumphant. Creating even more of an impression was the performance a month and a half later under the baton of Gustav Mahler. Rachmaninoff would later recall how Mahler had worked tirelessly in the run up to the concerts on the orchestral accompaniment: ‘Every detail of the score was important […]. Though the rehearsal was scheduled to end at 12.30, we played and played, far beyond this hour, and when Mahler announced that the first movement would be rehearsed again, I expected some protest or scene from the musicians, but I did not notice a single sign of annoyance.’
Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto is demanding of the orchestra but even more of its soloist. It is recognised as the Mount Everest of concertos: forty minutes in length
and technically demanding in the extreme. But more important than these external aspects is the emotional impact of this music, which is so full of passion and melancholy. In 1930, with Russia now part of the Soviet Union, Rachmaninoff’s brother-in-law spoke of how he heard in the music a nostalgia for a lost Russia. This concerto allows the listeners to live again in the ‘good past’, so that for a short hour they could forget the ‘bad future’.
Angels and monsters
Paul Hindemith’s symphony Mathis der Maler refers to sixteenth-century mystical painter Matthias Grünewald and his famous Isenheimer Altarpiece. ‘Der Maler’ (the Painter) lived in unsettled times, peasants were waging a bloody uprising against the ruling nobility and the Catholic Church. Hindemith saw parallels with his own times. The year is 1934. The Nazis are on the rise and Germany is marching headlong to a catastrophe of historic proportions. No one is safe under their violent rule.
The three movements of Hindemith’s symphony are based on the three panels of Grünewald’s altarpiece. The first movement depicts a concert of angels. Hindemith here uses the melody of the mediaeval song Es sungen drei Engel. The sober central movement that depicts the Entombment of Christ, is a brief moment of rest; a big contrast to the monumental final movement, that depicts the ordeal of St Anthony. Grünewald’s altarpiece presents a surreal tableau in which the saint is tormented by bloodthirsty monsters; Hindemith translates this image into a musical fever that is ended with a redemptive Hallelujah.
At its premiere on 12 March 1934 in the Berliner Philharmonie the symphony was
an overwhelming success. The Nazis, whom Hindemith had regarded as a dangerous cultural bolshevist, began to wonder whether this composer might not be a ‘musical genius’ of the Reich after all. However, a smear campaign conducted that same year landed Hindemith firmly in the ‘degenerate’ camp. This was followed by a ban on the performance of his work, including the Mathis der Maler.
Grünewald’s altarpiece presents a surreal tableau in which the saint is tormented by bloodthirsty monsters
Battlefield or ballroom?
Is Maurice Ravel’s La valse also set against a background of bloody conflict? Composed in 1920, so soon after World War I, the intense piece certainly creates that impression. However, Ravel himself put forward a different interpretation: ‘Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished. The clouds gradually scatter [...]. The scene is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth [...]. Set in an imperial court, about 1855.’ He had already begun work on La valse in 1906 as a homage to waltz king Johann Strauss, years before the battlefields of World War I.
So where does the truth lie? Does La valse draw us to the battlefield or the ballroom? Composer George Benjamin believes that there is no need to choose. ‘Whether or not it was intended as a metaphor for the predicament of European civilization in the aftermath of the Great War, its one-movement design plots the birth, decay and destruction of a musical genre: the waltz.’
Stephen Westra
Leif Ove Andsnes • piano
Born: Karmøy, Norway
Education: piano at the Bergen Music Conservatory with Jiří Hlinka
Breakthrough: 1989, debut Edinburgh International Festival
Subsequently: solo appearances with all major orchestras worldwide; solo recitals and chamber music at the foremost international venues and festivals; countless awarded recordings with Virgin, EMI and Sony Chamber Music: founding director Rosendal Chamber Music Festival, co-founder and coartistic director (1991–2000) Risør Festival of Chamber Music, artistic director Ojai Music Festival 2012
Born: Hildesheim, Germany
Current position: music director
Konzerthausorchester Berlin, honorary conductor Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg
Education: first violin lessons at age 3, piano from age 5, conservatory studies in Hannover with Martin Brauss and Eiji Ōue (conducting), and Karl-Heinz Kämmerling and Bernd Goetzke (piano)
Awards: Opernwelt Conductor of the Year 2019, Sonderpreis des Kulturpreises Bayern 2020, Order of Merit of the German Republic (2023)
Breakthrough: 2006 as substituting conductor in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Heidelberg
Subsequently: guest appearances with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Münchner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Salzburger Festspiele, Semperoper Dresden, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Dutch National Opera
Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2024
Titetles: Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, honorary doctorates from Norway’s Universities of Bergen and Oslo and New York’s Juilliard School
Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2024
Photo: Sima Dehgani
Joana Mallwitz • conductor
Photo: Helge Hansen
Musicians Agenda
Fri 11 October 2024 • 20.15
conductor John Adams
vocalists Royal Conservatoire The Hague
Andriessen De Staat
Adams Harmonielehre
Thu 17 October 2024 • 20.15
Fri 18 oktober 2024 • 20.15
Sun 20 oktober 2024 • 14.15
conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky
Tsjaikovski Suite No. 3
Rimski-Korsakov Sheherazade
Fri 1 November 2024 • 20.15
Sun 3 November 2024 • 14.15
conductor Stéphane Denève
piano Marie-Ange Nguci
Boulanger D’un matin de printemps
Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2
Ravel/Visman Gaspard de la nuit (world premiere)
Stravinsky The Firebird (Suite 1919)
Thu 7 November 2024 • 20.15
Fri 8 November 2024 • 20.15
conductor Tarmo Peltokoski
cello Truls Mørk
Saariaho Ciel d’hiver
Sjostakovitsj Cello Concerto No. 2
Sibelius Symphony No. 1
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Chief Conductor
Lahav Shani
Honorary Conductor
Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Principal Guest Conductor
Tarmo Peltokoski
First Violin
Marieke Blankestijn, concertmeester
Quirine Scheffers
Hed Yaron Meyerson
Saskia Otto
Arno Bons
Rachel Browne
Maria Dingjan
Marie-José Schrijner
Noëmi Bodden
Petra Visser
Sophia Torrenga
Hadewijch Hofland
Annerien Stuker
Alexandra van Beveren
Marie Duquesnoy
Second Violin
Charlotte Potgieter
Frank de Groot
Laurens van Vliet
Elina Staphorsius
Jun Yi Dou
Bob Bruyn
Eefje Habraken
Maija Reinikainen
Babette van den Berg
Melanie Broers
Tobias Staub
Sarah Decamps
Viola
Anne Huser
Roman Spitzer
Galahad Samson
José Moura Nunes
FKerstin Bonk
Janine Baller
Francis Saunders
Veronika Lénártová
Rosalinde Kluck
León van den Berg
Olfje van der Klein
Jan Navarro
Cello
Emanuele Silvestri
Joanna Pachucka
Daniel Petrovitsch
Mario Rio
Eelco Beinema
Carla Schrijner
Pepijn Meeuws
Yi-Ting Fang
Double Bass
Matthew Midgley
Ying Lai Green
Jonathan Focquaert
Robert Franenberg
Harke Wiersma
Arjen Leendertz
Ricardo Neto
Javier Clemen Martínez
Flute
Juliette Hurel
Joséphine Olech
Manon Gayet
Flute/Piccolo
Beatriz Da Baião
Oboe
Karel Schoofs
Anja van der Maten
Oboe/Cor Anglais
Ron Tijhuis
Clarinet
Julien Hervé
Bruno Bonansea
Alberto Sánchez García
Clarinet/ Bass Clarinet
Romke-Jan Wijmenga
Bassoon
Pieter Nuytten
Lola Descours
Marianne Prommel
Bassoon/ Contrabassoon
Hans Wisse
Horn
David Fernández Alonso
Felipe Freitas
Wendy Leliveld
Richard Speetjens
Laurens Otto
Pierre Buizer
Trumpet
Alex Elia
Simon Wierenga
Jos Verspagen
Trombone
Pierre Volders
Alexander Verbeek
Remko de Jager
Bass Trombone
Rommert Groenhof
Tuba
Hendrik-Jan Renes
Percussion
Danny van de Wal
Ronald Ent
Martijn Boom
Adriaan Feyaerts
Harp
Charlotte Sprenkels