Schéhérazade. Painting by Sophie Gengembre Anderson (c. 1880). Coll. The New Art Gallery Walsall
Blaník. Omslagillustratie door Antonín König voor de
PROGRAMME
Smetana’s partituur (1894) Richard-Strauss-Institut
conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)
Suite for Orchestra No. 3 in G major, op. 55 (1884)
• Elégie. Andantino molto cantabile
• Valse mélancolique. Allegro moderato
• Scherzo. Presto
• Tema con variazioni. Andante con moto
intermission
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
Scheherazade, symphonic suite after The Arabian Nights, op. 35 (1888)
Violin solos: Tjeerd Top
• Largo e maestoso – Allegro non troppo
• Lento – Andantino – Allegro molto – Con moto
• Andantino quasi allegretto
• Allegro molto – Vivo – Allegro non troppo maestoso
Concert ends at around 22.30
Most recent performances by our orchestra:
Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3: Jan 1993, conductor Valery Gergiev
Rimsky-Karsakov Scheherazade: Jan 2019, conductor Elim Chan
One hour before the start of the concert, Wouter Schnmidt will give an introduction (in Dutch) to the programme, admission €7,50. Tickets are available at the hall, payment by debit card. The introduction is free for Vrienden.
Cover: Photo Naomi Koelemans
Farewell Charlotte Sprenkels
This is the last concert week of our harpist Charlotte Sprenkels. After 39 years with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, she is now retiring.
Photo: Eduardus Lee
‘With my orchestral friendship’. Portrait of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky with a dedication by the composer. Photo Charles Reutlinger, Paris 1886.
Russian suites
Far from strangers, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov were close. Both Russian, they had only a four-year age gap between them. Four years is also the amount of time that lies between their works in this programme, both thoroughly romantic, both brilliantly orchestrated.
Tchaikovsky
‘The nomadic life is beginning to weigh heavily on me,’ writes Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky from Paris to his friend Madame Natasha von Meck. He dreams of a place of his own where he can settle down. ‘Whether it will be somewhere on the outskirts of Moscow or somewhere far away and quieter, I don’t know yet. Thousands of plans are swarming in my head, but one way or another, I have to finally live at home.’
It is March of 1884 when Tchaikovsky writes this letter, and he is not feeling well. The year has already started off nerve-rackingly for him with the premiere of Mazeppa. After having worked on this opera for two years, he still feels insecure about it. During the dress rehearsal, he hides in his box behind a curtain with ‘the look of someone sentenced to death’, as his friend Nikolai Kashkin would later recall. Tchaikovsky, on the verge of a breakdown, just manages to bring himself to attend the first performance of the opera in Moscow. Three days later at the St. Petersburg premiere
however, he does not turn up. He has fled the country.
That spring, Tchaikovsky tries to find rest in Ukraine at Kamianka, his sister Alexandra’s estate. He also hopes to get to work there. For years he has wanted to write a new symphony, the successor to his grandiose Fourth, and it just wouldn’t work out. But one day in April, while walking through the garden, inspiration strikes. A musical idea, the seed for a new orchestral work – not a symphony, Tchaikovsky realises, but an orchestral suite. A weight is lifted from his shoulders. The suite, he writes to Von Meck, is a favourite genre of his, ‘because of the freedom it affords the composer not to be constrained by any traditions, conventional methods and established rules.’ Tchaikovsky initially envisions a work in five movements. But the first movement, ‘Contrasts’, disappears into the waste bin, it is a failure. Moreover, five movements proves to be too much. The other movements do come out well, especially the finale, a theme with variations. That theme is in G major, Tchaikovsky’s key of joy, which he had already used before for the polonaise from Eugene Onegin. This provides a fountain of variations to arise. Joie de vivre and enthusiasm sometimes make way for darker colours –echoes of the Dies Irae in the fourth variation, a melancholic cor anglais solo in the eighth – but ultimately everything works towards a radiant polonaise ending.
‘I have never before experienced such a triumph,’ Tchaikovsky writes after the premiere. He will conduct the Third Suite many more times; more often, at the express request of the audience, only the finale: that brilliant music takes on a life of its own.
Rimsky-Korsakov
While Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is celebrating triumph far beyond the country’s borders, embracing the entire European musical tradition, some of his compatriots commit themselves to a thoroughly Russian music. No German academicism. No Italian opera. No French ballet. None of that. Instead, the raw Russian primordial sound, capricious rhythms in unusual, irregular time signatures and harmonies that have preserved something of Russian Orthodox church music.
Five prominent advocates of such a national school find each other in a collective that is soon popularly called ‘The Mighty Handful’, because it is so influential. Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin belong to that group, as does Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The latter makes a name for himself with operas such as The Maid of Pskov, an Overture on Three Russian Themes and other works inspired by his country. But when The Mighty Handful falls apart, he also begins to look beyond the borders in his music. For example, he reaps great success with his Capriccio espagnol, an orchestral suite on Spanish themes. Tchaikovsky is deeply impressed. ‘A colossal chef d’oeuvre of instrumentation,’ he calls it in a letter to Rimsky. ‘You can safely consider yourself the greatest of all contemporary masters.’
An even greater triumph comes the following year with a new suite: Scheherazade, to this day Rimsky’s most famous orchestral work. The
composer enchants us with his phenomenal sense of timbre – according to him not just a furnishing, but ‘part of the very soul of the work.’ With his rich palette of colours, he brings the world from the tales of the Arabian Nights to life. In two themes he portrays the main characters. The first theme, which sounds right at the beginning – harsh, almost coarse, with dominant brass – represents Sultan Shahriar. In the second theme – sultry, sensual, one solo violin accompanied by harp – we recognize Scheherazade, the heroine of our story.
During the dress rehearsal, he hides in his box behind a curtain
By way of explanation, Rimsky-Korsakov includes a preface in his score, in which he briefly summarizes the story of Scheherazade. He also gives the four parts titles that refer to the various fairy tales that pass by in the music. But in later editions of the score, Rimsky has all that explanation deleted; only the name Scheherazade as the title of the entire work is retained. ‘All I desired,’ the composer explains, ‘was that the listener should sense that it is beyond a doubt an Oriental narrative of numerous and varied fairy-tale wonders – and not merely four pieces played one after the other, composed on the basis of themes common to all the four movements.’
Stephen Westra
Rimsky-Korsakov’s
discarded preface to Scheherazade
The Sultan Shahriar, convinced that women are faithless, had sworn to put to death each one of his wives after the first nuptial night. But the Sultana Scheherazade saved her life by interesting him in the tales she told him throughout the 1001 nights. Driven by curiosity, the Sultan put off her execution from one day to the next and finally abandoned his bloodthirsty resolution altogether.
Many wonders were told to Shahriar by the Sultana Scheherazade. She borrowed the words, both poems and popular songs, from older poets, and she mixed both into her stories and adventures.
Stanislav Kochanovsky • conductor
Born: Saint Petersburg, Russia
Current position: Chief Conductor NDR
Radiophilharmonie
Before: Chief Conductor State Safonov Philharmonic Orchestra
I. The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship
II. The Story of the Kalendar Prince
III. The Young Prince and the Young Princess
IV. Festival at Baghdad — The Sea — Shipwreck
Illustration: Ivan Bilibin (1932). The Sea and Sinbad’s
Education: Glinka Choir School; RimskyKorsakov Conservatory Saint Petersburg, composition, organ, opera-symphonic conducting
Breakthrough: 2010, as chief conductor in Kislovodsk
Guest appearances: Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Rome, Orchestre de Paris, Wiener Symphoniker, Danish National Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, NDR Elbphilharmonie, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Philharmonia Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, Cleveland Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Opera engagements: Opernhaus Zürich (Pique Dame, Eugene Onegin), Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Iolanta), Dutch National Opera (Prince Igor), Verbier Festival (Rigoletto, Die Zauberflöte, Hänsel und Gretel), Mariinsky
Theatre Saint Petersburg
Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2015
Photo: Simon van Boxtel
Musicians Agenda
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
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
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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
Charlotte Sprenkels