Parisian Dreams Fri 1 November 2024 • 20.15 Sun 3 November 2024 • 14.15
PROGRAMME
conductor Stéphane Denève
piano Marie-Ange Nguci
Lily Boulanger (1893–1918)
D’un matin de printemps (1917–1918)
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921)
Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op. 22 (1868)
• Andante sostenuto
• Allegro scherzando
• Presto
Intermission
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Gaspard de la Nuit. Trois poèmes pour piano d’après Aloysius Bertrand (1908)
Orchestration Bart Visman (2019–20, world premiere)
• Ondine
• Le gibet
• Scarbo
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
L’oiseau de feu: Suite (1910/1919)
• Introduction – The Firebird and its DanceVariation of the Firebird
• The Princesses’ Khorovod (Rondo)
• Infernal Dance of King Kashchei
• Lullaby
• Finale
Concert ends at around 22.30
Most recent performances by our orchestra:
Boulanger D’un matin de printemps: Jan 1937, conductor Eduard Flipse
Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 2: Sep 2000, piano Cécile Ousset, conductor Marc Soustrot
Ravel/Visman Gaspard de la nuit: world premiere
Stravinsky L’oiseau de feu (Suite 1919): Feb 2022, conductor Lahav Shani
Cover: Photo Lucas K
Firebird. Costume design (1922) by Léon Bakst for the ballet L’oiseau de feu
Etching
Gaspard de la Nuit.
(1868) by Félicien Rops. Coll. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Ties between France and Russia
Each of the three French composers who open this programme has a connection with Russia, either because a parent came from that country, or a patron, or an inspiring colleague. The concert ends with an actual Russian composer, whose international career got off to a flying start thanks to his extraordinary success in Paris.
Legendary talent
The family of Lili Boulanger belonged to the cultural elite of Paris society. Her father was a composer and taught singing at the conservatoire; her mother, born Princess Raissa Ivanovna Mychetskaya, was a Russian singer from Saint Petersburg. Together they created the ideal nest for nurturing the talents of their two musical daughters. Nadia gained fame as a teacher of composition. Her students included Astor Piazzolla and a generation of American composers. For a long time her younger sister Lili remained in her shadow. From a very early age Lili wanted to compose music. However, she suffered from tuberculosis, and her lifelong struggle with the illness ended in 1918 at the young age of twenty-four. Gabriel Fauré, who would visit the family, was impressed by her precocious talent and was the first to give her piano lessons. In 1913, following her studies at the Paris conservatoire, she was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome for her cantata Faust et Hélène, which made her the first woman to win the prize.
Four years later came her composition D’un matin de printemps (‘On a Spring Morning’).
Lili began work on the piece in the spring of 1917, and completed it in early 1918, just two months before her death. Given her weakened condition, her sister Nadia helped her with the notation of the music. German troops were advancing slowly on Paris and the family chose a place of safety in Mézy-sur-Seine. The piece feels like the break of a new dawn, the bringer of new energy. The lush score for the wind section in particular contributes to the liveliness with its bright timbre. However, it is clear that there are lurking shadows and troubled waters, depicted in the mysterious, even ghostly, moments played by violin and celesta. Following the ebb and flow and these two contrasting emotions, the work ends with brilliance and exuberance.
Musical chameleon
Camille Saint-Saëns was a musical chameleon. He researched the music of the eighteenth century and composed works that echoed with the sounds of Mozart and Mendelssohn, and later also of Brahms and Wagner. Nevertheless, all his music possesses the typical French spirit: clear, sparkling, elegant and slightly lacking in emotion.
Take, for example, his Second Piano Concerto, which he composed in 1868 at the age of thirty-five, and premiered himself in Paris.
The Russian pianist, composer and conductor Anton Rubinstein had requested him to organise a Paris concert. For the occasion, Saint-Saëns himself composed a new piece in just three weeks – this Second Piano Concerto. The premiere, conducted by Rubinstein, received a rather lukewarm reception, due to
the short amount of rehearsal time and the great switches in style within the work: ‘It begins with Bach and ends with Offenbach’, was the view of pianist Zygmunt Stojowski.
Gabriel Fauré, at the time a student of SaintSaëns, would recall years later that he had presented his teacher with a setting of the words of the hymn Tantum ergo. Saint-Saëns had taken a quick glance at it and said: ‘Give it to me. I can do something with it!’ The result was the main theme of the first movement of the new piano concerto. Before the entry of this main theme, however, the concerto begins with a solo improvisation in the style of Bach. A gentler second theme is more in the style of Chopin, with lavish embellishments and parallel thirds. The second movement is in the form of a scherzo, that recalls the darting elves of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. The breakneck speed and virtuosity of the third movement also reminds of Mendelssohn, this time the fourth movement of his Italian Symphony. Whilst the reaction from the Parisian audience at the premiere was reserved, Franz Liszt had no hesitation in saying that he had ‘enjoyed the concerto immensely’.
The Dark Ages
Maurice Ravel based his three-part piano cycle Gaspard de la Nuit (1908) on the collection of prose poems bearing the same name by Aloysius Bertrand. The texts paint macabre images from the Dark Ages, supposedly by the hand of the demonic Gaspard. The first movement, Ondine, tells of a water nymph who tries to seduce a man into marriage. When he refuses, she vanishes in a torrent of water. The second movement, Le gibet (‘the gallows’) depicts a hanged man. The setting sun turns the gallows red. Distant bells are tolling. In the equally terrifying final movement - a virtuoso piece par excellence - Scarbo, we are
confronted by the sudden appearance of an evil goblin, whose mischief and wild laughter haunts the nights of terrified humans, and who disappears just as quickly. For nineteen pages of sheet music we hear rapidly repeated notes, wild arpeggios, sudden pauses, and violent outbursts, until the music dissolves into a mist of soft 32nd notes. Pianists regard this work as one of the most challenging of the entire repertoire: Ravel prided himself on having composed a piece more difficult to perform than the famous Islamey by Russian composer Mili Balakirev. This concert presents a world premiere of a refined and colourful orchestration of the work by Dutch composer Bart Visman.
Saint-Saëns composed a new piece in just three weeks – this Second Piano Concerto
Russian fairy tale
Igor Stravinsky originally composed The Firebird as a ballet score set to a Russian fairy tale. The work had been commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes. The ballet company premiered the work in June 1910 at the Paris Opera, where it held a residency. The performance was a huge success, leaving the audience craving for more. To enable the score to also enjoy a life in the concert hall, Stravinsky reworked it in 1911 into a symphonic suite, comprising the highlights of the ballet music, which he would later revise twice: in 1919 and again in 1945. This programme presents the 1919 version which, partly thanks to its atmospheric orchestration (woodwind section!), is regarded as one of the most enchanting and beloved compositions of the early twentieth century.
Clemens Romijn
Stéphane Denève • conductor
Born: Tourcoing, France
Current position: Music Director St Louis Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Director
New World Symphony, Principal Guest Conductor Netherlands Radio Philharmonic
Before: Chief Conductor RSO Stuttgart, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Brussels Philharmonic, Principal Guest Conductor Philadelphia Orchestra
Education: Conservatoire National Supérieur Paris
Awards: Classical Music Award symphonic music (2013), thrice winner Diapason d’Or of the Year
Breakthrough: as Chief Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Subsequently: guest appearances
Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Czech Philharmonic, Los Angeles
Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, symphony orchestras of Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2003
Marie-Ange Nguci • piano
Born: Fier, Albanië
Education: piano at the Paris Conservatory (from age 13) with Nicholas Angelich; conducting at the Musik und Kunst Universität, Vienna; music at the City University of New York and the Sorbonne University Paris
Awards: First Prizes International Piano Competion of Langy-sur-Marne (2011) and MacKenzie Awards International Piano Competition New York (2015), Charles Oulmont Award (2016)
Solo appearances: NHK Symphony Orchestra, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre de Paris with conductors such as Paavo Järvi, Fabio Luisi, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Krzysztof Urbański, Dalia Stasevska and Xian Zhang, Artist in Residence 2023-2024 with the Basel Symphony Orchestra
Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2024
Photo SWR
Photo: Caroline-Doutre
Musicians Agenda
Thu 7 November 2024 • 20.15
Fri 8 November 2024 • 20.15
conductor Tarmo Peltokoski
cello Truls Mørk
Saariaho Ciel d’hiver
Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2
Sibelius Symphony No. 1
Wed 13 November 2024 • 19.30
Thu 14 November 2024 • 19.30
Fri 15 November 2024 • 19.30
Sat 16 November 2024 • 13.30 and 19.30
Sun 17 November 2024 • 13.30
Desplat Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2
Thu 21 November 2024 • 20.30
conductor Lahav Shani
saxophone Rom Shani
piano Makoto Ozone
guest ensemble WDR Big Band
Gershwin Piano Concerto
Tchaikovsky Nutcracker Suite
Ellington Nutcracker Suite
Hefti The kid from Red Bank
Fri 22 November 2024 • 20.15
conductor Lahav Shani
Bruckner Symphony No. 8
Music for Breakfast 2
Sun 8 December 2024 • 10.30
Rotterdam, RDM Kantine
For musicians and programme see rpho.nl
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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
Kerstin 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 Albane Baron