Programme Notes | Mendelssohn and Bruckner

PROGRAMME

conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste violin Johan Dalene

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847)

Violin Concerto in E minor, Opus 64 (1844)

• Allegro molto appassionato

• Andante

• Allegretto non troppo - Allegro molto vivace

intermission

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)

Symphony No. 7 in E major (1881–83)

• Allegro moderato

• Adagio. Sehr feierlich und sehr langsam

• Scherzo. Sehr schnell

• Finale. Bewegt, doch nicht schnell

Concert ends at around 22.15/16.15

Most recent performances by our orchestra:

Mendelssohn Violin Concerto: Mar 2021, violin Leonidas Kavakos, conductor Andrés Orozco Estrada (online)

Bruckner Symphony No. 7: Oct 2018, conductor Lahav Shani

One hour before the start of the concert, Wim Ruitenbeek and Galahad Samson will give an introduction (in Dutch) to the programme, admission €5. Tickets are available at the hall, payment by debit card. The introduction is free for Vrienden.

Cover: Photo Richard Dacker (Pexels).

Bad Soden and surroundings. Engraving after a design by Ludwig Rohbock, c. 1850. Coll. Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich.

Happiness and Pain

Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto mirrors the idyllic circumstances in which the work was composed. There could hardly be a greater contrast with Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony which depicts the grieving over a bitter loss.

Lustrous pearl

Mendelssohn lived a hectic, overworked and stressful life leading to an untimely death at just 38 years old. But the circumstances in which he wrote his Violin Concerto were –exceptionally – an oasis of calm. ‘I sit under apple trees and great oaks... In the afternoons and evenings I eat strawberries with my coffee, drink Assmannshäuser mineral water, rise at six in the morning, and still manage nine and half hours sleep.’ Following an exhausting concert tour, Mendelssohn was holidaying in Bad Soden, a beautiful location at the foot of the Taunus Mountains in central Germany. He had so much looked forward to leaving the commotion of the big city behind: ‘The first step out of Berlin is the first step to happiness.’ And he found that happiness here, together with his wife Cécile and their four young children. These were the perfect conditions in which to complete the piece that he had long been working on.

‘I want to write a concerto for you’, he had told his friend, violinist Ferdinand David, six years earlier. ‘A piece in E minor is racing through my mind and the introduction is not giving me a moment’s rest.’ But it just came

to nothing – perhaps because Mendelssohn had originally wanted to develop his ideas into a piano concerto, the manuscript for which surfaced only recently. The fact that this composition remained unfinished was perhaps a blessing in disguise, because otherwise we may never have been given the beautiful, lustrous pearl that is his Violin Concerto. Besides being beautiful, the work is also radical. Mendelssohn was the first composer to link the three movements of a concerto to each other: to avoid applause at the end of each movement, he would later explain. The first and second movements are connected by a sustained note on the bassoon; the second and third by a miniature movement, a lovely Allegretto that is reminiscent of the first movement. Another novelty is the cadenza, for which Mendelssohn wrote out each and every note, leaving no opportunity for the soloist to improvise.

Solemn hymn

Anton Bruckner was a great improvisor at the biggest organs. His magnificent symphonies were true cathedrals of music. He would set the brass section ablaze like no other. And yet Bruckner suffered terrible self-doubt. Till late in life he would seek out the opinions of teachers of musical theory, almost begging to be awarded the diplomas that could attest to his ability. Were a conductor to offer any comment about any of his symphonies, he would immediately revise the work. There is so much that is magisterial about Bruckner, yet so much that shows humility: his character will always remain a mystery.

Anton Bruckner. Partrait by Riccardo Vecchio for The New Yorker.

In July 1882 – he was by then aged 57 –Bruckner was permitted a visit to his idol, Richard Wagner. He showed his scores to Wagner, who expressed his admiration. Bruckner was on cloud nine.

Wagner: ‘I will conduct your symphonies.’

Bruckner: ‘Oh, Master!’

Wagner: ‘Have you seen the Parsifal? Did you like it?’

Bruckner: ‘Master, I adore you!’

Wagner: ‘Steady on, Bruckner. Now I am going to bed.’

During this exchange Bruckner had fallen to his knees, pressed Wagner’s ‘illustrious hand’ to his lips and kissed it.

Bruckner: ‘Master, I adore you!’

Wagner: ‘Steady on, Bruckner.

Now I am going to bed.’

Just half a year following this meeting, Wagner died. Bruckner was in deep shock. In his Seventh Symphony, which he had been working on for the previous one and a half years, he dedicated an important place for Wagner. He reworked the Adagio. It would become an elegy and hymn of praise to his great hero, ‘a very solemn and very slow’ movement that many consider to be the highpoint of his body of work. Bruckner expanded the orchestra with four so-called ‘Wagner tubas’, instruments deployed by Wagner in his opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelung. And then comes a clash of the cymbals during the climax of this slow movement. The story goes that Bruckner added this at the moment he heard of Wagner’s death. But that is pure myth: in fact the cymbal clash was a suggestion by the young, talented and daring conductor Arthur Nikisch, who would conduct the first performance.

Premonitory dream

The premiere of his Seventh Symphony would be Bruckner’s first great success; a triumph that had been predicted in a strange dream that came to him when he started working on the symphony. ‘A former friend from Linz, called Dorn, appeared before me. He dictated to me the main theme of the first movement, and I immediately wrote it down. “Take note,” said Dorn, “This theme will bring you luck.”’ It was about time, too. Till then, people had largely ignored Bruckner. But now the dream had become a premonition. Within days of the Leipzig premiere on 30 December 1884 the newspaper Deutsche Zeitung reported: ‘With mounting interest, the public followed the unfolding of the grandiose and deeply serious thoughts captured in this work. From one movement to the next the expressions of enthusiasm grew.’

This was in the city of Leipzig where, forty years previously, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto was also premiered. From this good start, success continued. Following its second performance on 10 March 1885 in the Odeon concert hall in Munich, conductor Hermann Levi gathered the members of the orchestra together once more. ‘Gentlemen! In this hall we have often played masterpieces before the King. Now we have a prince in the realm of music amongst us. I ask that in his honour you play once more a part of the Adagio.’ The auditorium had already emptied and the passage that expresses Bruckner’s pain at the death of Wagner was played three times in the now sanctified space. Eleven years later the same music would be played at Bruckner’s own funeral.

Stephen Westra

Johan Dalene • violin

Born: Svärtinge, Sweden

Education: first violin lessons at age four, student in residence Verbier Festival with Janine Jansen, Leif Ove Andsnes and Gideon Kremer, Stockholm Conservatory with Per Enoksson

Award: Gramophone Young Artist of the Year 2022

Breakthrough: 2019: First Prize International Carl Nielsen Competition

Subsequently: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic with conductors such as Semyon Bychkov, Andrew Manze, Sakari Oramo, Esa-Pekka Salonen; BBC New Generation Artist (2019–2021), artist in residence with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (2020–2021), Gävle Symphony (2023–2024) and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (2023–2024)

Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2024

Jukka-Pekka Saraste

• conductor

Born: Heinola, Finland

Current position: Music Director Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Honorary Conductor Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra; founder and Artistic Advisor Finnish Chamber Orchestra

Previously: Principal Conductor WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra

Awards: Pro Finlandia Prize, Sibelius Medal, Finnish State Prize for Music

Guest Appearances: London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Munich

Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Staatskapelle Dresden, Cleveland Orchestra, symphony orchestras of Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, New York

Philharmonic Orchestra

Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 1990

Photo: Felix Broede

Photo: Mats Bäcker

Agenda

Proms: Spring Is In The Air

Fri 19 April 2024 • 20.30

leader Marieke Blankestijn

violin Kira van der Woerd

Vivaldi The Four Seasons: Spring

Pachelbel Canon and Gigue

Handel Concerto Grosso Op.6

No.4

Bach Air from Suite No. 3

Vivaldi The Four Seasons: Summer

Fri 26 April 2024 • 18.00

conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Siegmund Stanislas de Barbeyrac

Sieglinde Elza van den Heever

Hunding Soloman Howard

Wotan Brian Mulligan

Brünnhilde Tamara Wilson

Fricka Karen Cargill

Wagner Die Walküre

Thu 2 May 2024 • 20.15

conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin

violin Randall Goosby

Dvořák Overture Carnival

Price Violin Concerto No. 2

Price Adoration

Brahms Symphony No. 4

Commemoration Concert

Tue 14 May 2024 • 20.15

Rotterdam, Laurenskerk

conductor Giuseppe Mengoli

soprano Ilse Eerens

choir Laurens Collegium

Lutosławski Musique funèbre

Bruckner Ave Maria

Bruckner Aequale Nos. 1 and 2

Bruckner Christus factus est

Schönberg Friede auf Erden

Vivaldi Gloria

Chief Conductor

Lahav Shani

Honorary Conductor

Musicians

Viola

Anne Huser

Roman Spitzer

Galahad Samson

José Moura Nunes

Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Principal Guest Conductor

Tarmo Peltokoski

First Violin

Marieke Blankestijn, concertmeester

Quirine Scheffers

Hed Yaron Meyerson

Saskia Otto

Arno Bons

Mireille van der Wart

Rachel Browne

Maria Dingjan

Marie-José Schrijner

Noëmi Bodden

Petra Visser

Sophia Torrenga

Hadewijch Hofland

Annerien Stuker

Alexandra van Beveren

Second Violin

Charlotte Potgieter

Cecilia Ziano

Frank de Groot

Laurens van Vliet

Tomoko Hara

Elina Staphorsius

Jun Yi Dou

Bob Bruyn

Eefje Habraken

Maija Reinikainen

Wim Ruitenbeek

Babette van den Berg

Melanie Broers

Lana Trimmer

Kerstin Bonk

Lex Prummel

Janine Baller

Francis Saunders

Veronika Lénártová

Rosalinde Kluck

León van den Berg

Olfje van der Klein

Cello

Emanuele Silvestri

Eugene Lifschitz

Joanna Pachucka

Daniel Petrovitsch

Mario Rio

Gé van Leeuwen

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

Flute

Juliette Hurel

Joséphine Olech

Flute/piccolo

Beatriz Da Baião

Oboe

Remco de Vries

Karel Schoofs

Anja van der Maten

Oboe/Cor Anglais

Ron Tijhuis

Clarinet

Julien Hervé

Bruno Bonansea

Clarinet/ Bass Clarinet

Romke-Jan Wijmenga

Bassoon

Pieter Nuytten

Lola Descours

Marianne Prommel

Bassoon/ Contrabassoon

Hans Wisse

Horn

David Fernández Alonso

Felipe Santos Freitas Silva

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