Symphonie Fantastique

FROM THE

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Photo Credit: Lauren Radack

DEAR FRIENDS, The New Year certainly is off to a wonderful start for the San Diego Symphony! Our Upright & Grand Piano Festival, which began on January 8 and ends on February 8, attracted over 19,000 people attending concerts ranging from orchestral performances to our first “Beyond the Score,” to jazz and recitals. In addition, on January 16, our free community day brought nearly 1,000 people into the Jacobs Music Center to learn all about the piano – to take their first piano lesson; or discover new smart phone apps for making music; or observe how pianos are tuned; or watch and listen as six grand pianos were played by eight hands for a “Monster Piano” performance of Stars and Stripes Forever.

Our “Play Me: Pianos in Public Spaces” program, through which we placed ten brightly painted pianos in ten different locations around San Diego, stirred imaginations of young and old, as pianists of every experience level took a moment to make some music on pianos in surprising locations such as Horton Plaza or the downtown MCASD. Music is for everyone, as our first January festival so joyfully demonstrated.

MARTHA GILMER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

January was also a seminal month for the San Diego Symphony’s summer concert series as we received a unanimous vote of approval from the Commissioners of the Port of San Diego to move forward with our planning for a new, permanent concert stage at Embarcadero Marina Park South. This new stage and revitalized park space, which we are calling the Bayside Performance Center, is designed to provide a state-of-the-art concert experience along with permanent restrooms, green space and food service amenities. We look forward to working with the Port on developing what we hope will become San Diego’s most iconic bayside structure as well as a community gathering space for generations to come.

After such an incredible January, February is equally as exciting! As many of you know, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra is the orchestra that performs for the San Diego Opera. So for much of February, our musicians are extremely busy with opera rehearsals and performances at the Civic Theatre. We encourage all of you to come hear the San Diego Symphony in Puccini’s Tosca, which opens on February 13. While the orchestra is just down B Street, we also offer presentations here at the Jacobs Music Center such as the Moscow Festival Ballet and The Band of the Royal Marines + the Pipes, Drums and Highland Dancers of the Scots Guards early in the month. On February 19, the third of our wildly popular new Jazz @ The Jacobs concerts features the incomparable Dianne Reeves. Our orchestra returns at the end of the month to perform Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique with young American guest conductor Joshua Weilerstein.

Mr. Weilerstein is the seventh guest conductor to join us this season. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and has performed extensively with major orchestras in Europe. His sister, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, performed with us just this past December in the Brahms Concerto for Violin and Cello with Concertmaster Jeff Thayer February is also the time when we announce our upcoming Summer Pops season. I hope you will renew your subscription right away!

Without giving away any of the “news” about the summer season, I am happy to share with you that we have a wonderful line-up of guest artists… and some surprises. Stay tuned!

Sincerely,

Martha Gilmer Chief Executive Officer COVER PHOTO CREDIT: David Hartig S AN DI EG O SYMPHO NY O RCHEST RA WINT ER SEA SO N F E B RUA RY 2 016

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SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

JAHJA LING, MUSIC DIRECTOR

MATTHEW GARBUTT

Principal Summer Pops Conductor

SAMEER PATEL Assistant Conductor

VIOLIN Jeff Thayer Concertmaster DEBORAH

PATE AND JOHN FORREST CHAIR

Wesley Precourt Associate Concertmaster Jisun Yang Assistant Concertmaster Alexander Palamidis Principal II TBD Associate Principal II Nick Grant Principal Associate Concertmaster Emeritus Randall Brinton Yumi Cho Hernan Constantino Alicia Engley Pat Francis Kathryn Hatmaker Angela Homnick Ai Nihira* Igor Pandurski Julia Pautz Susan Robboy Shigeko Sasaki Yeh Shen Anna Skálová Edmund Stein John Stubbs Pei-Chun Tsai Jing Yan Joan Zelickman VIOLA Chi-Yuan Chen Principal KAREN AND WARREN KESSLER CHAIR

Nancy Lochner Associate Principal Rebekah Campbell Wanda Law Qing Liang Caterina Longhi Thomas Morgan Ethan Pernela Dorothy Zeavin CELLO Yao Zhao Principal Chia-Ling Chien Associate Principal Marcia Bookstein Glen Campbell Andrew Hayhurst

Richard Levine Ronald Robboy Mary Oda Szanto Xian Zhuo

Douglas Hall

BASS

John MacFerran Wilds Ray Nowak

Jeremy Kurtz-Harris ˆ Principal OPHIE AND ARTHUR BRODY S FOUNDATION CHAIR

Susan Wulff Acting Principal Samuel Hager Acting Associate Principal W. Gregory Berton ˆ P. J. Cinque Jory Herman Margaret Johnston+ Daniel Smith* Michael Wais Sayuri Yamamoto* FLUTE Rose Lombardo Principal Sarah Tuck Erica Peel PICCOLO Erica Peel OBOE Sarah Skuster Principal

TRUMPET Micah Wilkinson Principal

TROMBONE Kyle R. Covington Principal Logan Chopyk Richard Gordon+ Michael Priddy BASS TROMBONE Michael Priddy TUBA Matthew Garbutt Principal HARP Julie Smith Phillips Principal TIMPANI Ryan J. DiLisi Principal Andrew Watkins Assistant Principal PERCUSSION Gregory Cohen Principal

Harrison Linsey Andrea Overturf

Erin Douglas Dowrey Andrew Watkins

ENGLISH HORN Andrea Overturf

PIANO/CELESTE Mary Barranger

DR. WILLIAM AND EVELYN LAMDEN ENGLISH HORN CHAIR

CLARINET Sheryl Renk Principal

ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL MANAGER Magdalena O’Neill ASSISTANT PERSONNEL MANAGER TBA

Theresa Tunnicliff Frank Renk

PRINCIPAL LIBRARIAN Courtney Secoy Cohen

BASS CLARINET Frank Renk

LIBRARIAN Rachel Fields

BASSOON Valentin Martchev Principal Ryan Simmons Leyla Zamora

* Long Term Substitute Musician + Staff Opera Musician ˆ On leave

CONTRABASSOON Leyla Zamora

All musicians are members of the American Federation of Musicians Local 325.

HORN Benjamin Jaber Principal Darby Hinshaw Assistant Principal & Utility Danielle Kuhlmann Tricia Skye

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Financial support is provided by the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture.

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FEBRUARY 26, 27 & 28 SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE

JACOBS MASTERWORKS SERIES

FRIDAY February 26, 2016 – 8:00pm SATURDAY February 27, 2016 – 8:00pm SUNDAY February 28, 2016 – 2:00pm conductor Joshua Weilerstein flute Rose Lombardo

Performances at the Jacobs Music Center's Copley Symphony Hall

PROGRAM CHRISTOPHER ROUSE CARL NIELSEN

Bump Flute Concerto Allegro moderato Allegretto Rose Lombardo, flute

INTERMISSION

HECTOR BERLIOZ

Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 Rêveries, Passions Un bal (A Ball) Scène aux champs (Scene in the Country) Marche au supplice (March to the Scaffold) Songe d'une nuit du sabbat (Dream of a Witches' Sabbath)

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE – FEBRUARY 26, 27 & 28 Radio Symphony Orchestra and Swedish Chamber Orchestra. He has also conducted the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and he has been re-invited to the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.

Mr. Weilerstein feels that it is essential to have an open communication between the stage and audience. He believes passionately in the relevance of traditional repertoire and is equally passionate about the innovation of contemporary composers. He is committed to presenting, whenever possible, at least one piece by a living composer as a complement to more traditional repertoire.

JOSHUA WEILERSTEIN, CONDUCTOR

J

O S H UA WEI L ER ST EIN is Artistic Director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and begins his tenure with the orchestra in the 2015-16 season. With a repertoire ranging from Gesualdo to Rouse, he is committed to bringing new audiences into the concert hall and creating a natural dialogue between musicians and their public.

His deep natural musicianship and unforced manner earn him re-invitations at every turn.

In 2015-16 Mr. Weilerstein will make his debut with the Philahrmonia, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, SWR Stuttgart and Lahti Symphony Orchestra, and will make his Barbican debut when he returns to the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

He will also return to the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Oslo Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestre National de Lyon. With the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Weilerstein will tour Germany, performing in Bremen, Hamburg, Hannover and Düsseldorf. In North America, Mr. Weilerstein will conduct the Baltimore Symphony, San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony and Vancouver Symphony.

Born into a musical family, Mr. Weilerstein’s career developed quickly after winning both the First Prize and the Audience Prize at the Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen. He has established strong relationships with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Finnish

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Mr. Weilerstein cherishes the value of music education wherever the opportunity arises, He was heavily involved in Young People’s Concerts during his time as the Assistant Conductor with the New York Philharmonic, and also served as Concertmaster of Discovery Ensemble, a Boston-based chamber orchestra dedicated to presenting classical music to inner-city schools in Boston. With the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Mr. Weilerstein will conduct educational and Discovery concerts for children and families.

Joshua Weilerstein is always excited to hear from musicians and audiences alike. He is accessible on social media for conversation about the future of classical music, programming and the concert-going experience. n

R

O S E LO MBA R D O was appointed Principal Flute of the San Diego Symphony in 2011 at the age of 23. At the time, she was in her second year of graduate studies with Jim Walker at the Colburn School Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles and graduated with a Professional Studies Certificate. Previously, Ms. Lombardo earned a Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School where she studied with Jeffrey Khaner. Ms. Lombardo has traveled across the globe as an orchestral, chamber and solo artist. Her solo recitals have taken her from Boston to Europe and to China, and she has had the privilege of collaborating with some of the finest musicians in the most beautiful halls around the world, including Carnegie Hall, Bolshoi Zal at the St. Petersburg Philharmonia, Suntory Hall, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Jordan Hall and Boston Symphony Hall. Chamber music collaborations include performing alongside musicians from the Cincinnati Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic and William Christie’s early music ensemble, Les Arts Florissants. Ms. Lombardo performs regularly in San Diego with the Art of Elan and San Diego Symphony Chamber Music Series.

Ms. Lombardo has appeared as principal flute in numerous summer music festivals, including the 2008 Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, the 2011 Spoleto Music Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, and the 2012 Sunflower Music Festival in Topeka, Kansas. Most recently Rose Lombardo performed as principal flutist with the 2013 Artosphere Festival Orchestra in Fayetteville, Arkansas. n

“WHAT’S THE SCORE?”

Join us 45 minutes before every Jacobs Masterworks concert for “What’s The Score?”, a fascinating 25-minute concert talk from the stage by San Diego Symphony Concert Commentator "Nuvi Mehta"!

ROSE LOMBARDO, PRINCIPAL FLUTE

SAN DI E GO SYM P H O N Y O R C H E ST R A W I N T E R S E AS ON F E B R UAR Y 2016

ABOUT THE MUSIC

SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE – FEBRUARY 26, 27 & 28 Bump C H R I STO PH E R R O USE Born February 15, 1949, Baltimore Christopher Rouse can no longer be regarded as one of this country’s leading young composers – he turned 66 recently.

But his career has been distinguished indeed, and in his seventh decade Rouse continues to compose prolifically. After graduating from the Oberlin Conservatory in 1971, Rouse went on to individual study with George Crumb and Karel Husa. He has taught composition at the University of Michigan, Eastman School of Music, and – since 2002 – at Juilliard. Rouse won a Grammy® for best classical composition for his Concerto di Gaudi in 1992, and the following year he won the Pulitzer Prize for his Trombone Concerto. Rouse has been Composer-in-Residence with the Baltimore Symphony, Pacific Music Festival and Aspen Music Festival, and in 2002 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Rouse has supplied a program note for Bump: Bump was completed in Baltimore on January 22, 1985. Commissioned by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra through a fellowship grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, it functions both as the final movement of the triptych Phantasmata and as a separately performable work in its own right.

My original concept in Bump was akin to “La Valse meets Studio 54,” but as it was ultimately to possess neither waltz nor disco elements, I chose to fashion it as a “nightmare konga.” Accurately speaking, it is not a konga at all, in that the konga’s characteristic accent on the third beat’s fourth sixteenth is here displaced squarely to the fourth beat. Each fourth beat throughout the music is played by the bass drum (the climactic coda is in double time), and this serves not only to furnish the work’s title (which refers to dance floor bumping with the hips or buttocks) but also to lend the music a sense of oppressive obsessiveness. Though the score abounds with jazzy syncopations and “big band” brass writing, its harsher harmony and sinister mood act to keep the piece within the larger context of Phantasmata.

Bump is dedicated with sincere admiration and friendship to Leonard Slatkin.

(Reprinted by kind permission of Christopher Rouse) n

Flute Concerto CARL NIE LS E N Born June 9, 1865, Norre-Lyndelse Died October 2, 1931, Copenhagen Nielsen supported himself and his family for many years as a violinist, but he had an unusually close relationship with wind instruments throughout his life. As a boy of 14, he played trumpet, signal horn and trombone in a military band, and late in life he wrote a number of works for wind instruments. After hearing the Copenhagen Wind Quintet play Mozart in 1921, Nielsen became good friends with the members of that ensemble. He wrote a Wind Quintet for them in 1922, then decided to write a concerto for each of the Quintet’s members.

Nielsen completed a Flute Concerto (1926) and a Clarinet Concerto (1928), but his death at 66 of heart disease robbed us of the planned concertos for oboe, bassoon, and French horn.

Nielsen felt that every separate instrument had its own unique character, and he once remarked that “each instrument is like a person who sleeps, whom I have to wake to life.” It has been suggested that the Flute Concerto takes its character from the flutist for whom it was written, Holger Gilbert Jesperson. Jesperson has been described as “elegant” and “Gallic,” and some have been quick to hear these qualities in the concerto written for him, but Nielsen was probably writing for the instrument rather than for a specific performer. He said of the flute: “It is at home in Arcadia and prefers pastoral moods. A composer must fit in with its gentle nature if he doesn’t want to be branded as a barbarian.” Nielsen’s Flute Concerto – in two movements that last only about 17 minutes – is often “pastoral” in mood, but it is also a quirky, original, charming and very funny piece of music.

Nielsen wrote this concerto while on vacation in Italy in the fall of 1926 (the manuscript is dated October 1 in Florence), and Jesperson was soloist at the first performance, which took place as part of an all-Nielsen concert in Paris three weeks

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later. That concert was a success (Ravel and Honegger were in the audience, and Nielsen was awarded the Legion of Honor the following day), but Nielsen was not fully satisfied with the concerto. He re-wrote its ending, and Jesperson was again the soloist when this final version was premiered in Oslo on November 9, 1926. That change, as we shall see, was crucial to giving this music its special flavor.

The Allegro moderato springs to life with a fierce gesture from the orchestra, but this will prove to be a false direction, quickly corralled by the flute’s more civilized entrance, and the movement settles down for what seems at first a normal exposition.

This is based on two ideas: a dancing, staccato theme announced by the solo flute and a more flowing melody marked dolce, introduced by the orchestra and taken up by the flute. The development begins, and at this point an unexpected guest shows up: the concerto’s “other” principal player, a bass trombone, intrudes and becomes the rival of the solo flute. The trombone functions in this concerto much like a pesky neighbor who feels free to lean over the fence and comment on everything going on in your backyard. Here, over pounding timpani, it makes a rude entrance, going on at length while the flute scurries about in dismay. And then the development resumes as if nothing had happened. At this point Nielsen introduces the movement’s third theme, a lovely idea sung glowingly by the flute. Nielsen offers his soloist an impressive cadenza, accompanied first by timpani and then joined by a saucy solo clarinet. The orchestra returns, the movement’s themes are reviewed briefly (it is altogether typical of this concerto that a new one should show up in the closing measures), and gradually the soloist leads the orchestra to a calm close in G-flat Major.

The Allegretto begins violently with harmonically unstable attacks from the orchestra, and once again the solo flute restores order with its dancing entrance, marked grazioso and set in unambiguous G Major. A brief Adagio ma non troppo recalls the theme introduced in the closing moments of the first movement; this rises to a rather strident climax before the Allegretto resumes. And from here on, things really take some surprising turns. At the coda, marked Tempo di marcia, Nielsen

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ABOUT THE MUSIC

SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE – FEBRUARY 26, 27 & 28 re-bars the movement’s main theme in 6/8, something Mozart would do occasionally. At the Paris premiere, the concerto marched home calmly in D Major, but after hearing that performance, Nielsen rethought the ending and produced a new one for the Oslo premiere, more in keeping with the concerto’s wry sense humor. Our old friend the trombone shows up again and apparently has had a few drinks while he was gone – now he takes over the Tempo di marcia theme for himself, then insists on singing the flute’s lovely third theme from the first movement.

However rude it may be, the trombone also knows what it is doing – its sleazy glissandos now nudge the concerto toward the “correct” key of E Major, and finally the concerto dances to its wonderful close; the flute tries desperately to maintain its elegant bearing, but it is the tipsy trombone that gets the last word. n

Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 H E CTOR B E R L I OZ Born December 11, 1803, La Côte-St-André Died March 8, 1869, Paris It is impossible for modern audiences to understand how revolutionary Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique was when it burst upon surprised listeners in Paris in 1830. The music has become so over-familiar that we forget that it represented not only a brilliant new use of the orchestra but also an entirely new conception of the role of the composer.

For Berlioz subtitled this symphony “Episode in the Life of an Artist” and based it on details of his own life. And what made the symphony so sensational was that these autobiographical details were so lurid, private and painful. No longer was music an abstract art, at some distance from the psyche of its maker. When Berlioz created the nightmare journey of the Symphonie fantastique out of his own internal fury, the art of music was all at once propelled into a new era.

In 1827 an English acting troupe visited Paris, where their performances of Shakespeare created a sensation. Nowhere did these performances have more impact than on a 23-year-old music student named Hector Berlioz, who was as much smitten with the company’s leading lady, Harriet Smithson, as he was with Shakespeare. Berlioz himself

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recalled the effect of watching the actress play the part of Juliet: “It was too much.

By the third Act, hardly able to breathe – as though an iron hand gripped me by the heart – I knew I was lost.” Berlioz resolved on the spot to marry Harriet Smithson and soon mounted a concert of his own works as a way of attracting her attention; she never even heard of the concert. Plunged into the despair of his own helpless love, Berlioz came up with the idea that would – after much revision – become the Symphonie fantastique. He would depict in music the nightmarish mental adventures of a lovestricken young musician who took opium as a way to escape his pain.

Such an idea carries with it all sorts of dangers for unbridled self-indulgence, but in fact the Symphonie fantastique is a tightly-disciplined score. Its unity comes from Berlioz’s use of what he called (borrowing the term from the psychology of his day) an idée fixe, or “fixed idea”; today we would call it an obsession. In the symphony, this obsession takes the form of a long melody which Berlioz associates with his beloved. This melody appears in each of the symphony’s five movements, varied each time to suit the mood of the movement and the mental state of the suffering hero.

Berlioz, an unusually articulate writer, provided program notes of the symphony that are still worth quoting in detail.

(Berlioz’s notes are in italics in the following paragaphs:) A young musician of an unhealthily sensitive nature and endowed with vivid imagination has poisoned himself with opium in a paroxysm of lovesick despair. The narcotic dose he had taken was too weak to cause death, but it has thrown him into a long sleep accompanied by the most extraordinary visions. In this condition his sensations, his feelings and his memories find utterance in his sick brain in the form of musical imagery. Even the Beloved One takes the form of a melody in his mind, like a fixed idea which is ever returning and which he hears everywhere.

First Movement: Dreams, Passions. At first he thinks of the uneasy and nervous condition of his mind, of somber longings, of depression and joyous elation without any recognizable cause, which he experienced before the Beloved One had appeared to him. Then he remembers the ardent love with which she suddenly inspired him; he thinks of his almost insane anxiety of

mind, of his raging jealousy, of his reawakening love, of his religious consolation The movement’s opening, with murmuring woodwinds and muted strings, depicts the artist drifting softly into the drugged dreamstate. The animated idée fixe theme, the musical backbone of the entire symphony, is soon heard in the first violins and flute.

This undergoes a series of dramatic transformations (this opening movement is in a sort of sonata form) before the movement closes on quiet chords marked Religiosamente.

Second Movement: A Ball. In a ballroom, amidst the confusion of a brilliant festival, he finds the Beloved One again.

Berlioz here creates a flowing waltz, beautifully introduced by swirling strings and harps. Near the end, the music comes to a sudden stop, and the idée fixe melody appears in a graceful transformation for solo clarinet before the waltz resumes.

Third Movement: Scene in the Fields. It is a summer evening. He is in the country, musing, when he hears two shepherd lads who play, in alternation, the ranz des vaches (the tune used by the Swiss shepherds to call their flocks).

This pastoral duet, the quiet scene, the soft whisperings of the trees stirred by the zephyr wind, some prospects of hope recently made known to him, all these sensations unite to impart a long unknown report to his heart and to lend a smiling color to his imagination.

And then She appears once more. His heart stops beating, painful forebodings fill his soul.

“Should she prove false to him!” One of the shepherds resumes the melody, but the other answers him no more…Sunset…distant rolling of thunder…loneliness…silence...

The Scene in the Fields is one of Berlioz’s most successful examples of scene-painting, perhaps inspired by Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony, but nothing like it musically.

The dialogue of the shepherds’ pipes to the accompaniment of distant thunder is a particularly imaginative touch; the idée fixe is heard during the course of the dreamy summer afternoon in the woodwinds.

Fourth Movement: March to the Scaffold. He dreams that he has murdered his Beloved, that he has been condemned to death and is being led to execution. A march that is alternately somber and wild, brilliant and solemn, accompanies the procession. The tumultuous

SAN DI E GO SYM P H O N Y O R C H E ST R A W I N T E R S E AS ON F E B R UAR Y 2016

ABOUT THE MUSIC

SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE – FEBRUARY 26, 27 & 28 outbursts are followed without modulation by measured steps. At last the idée fixe returns, for a moment a last thought of love is revived, which is cut short by the deathblow.

This is the most famous music in the symphony, with its muffled drums giving way to the brilliant march. At the end, the solo clarinet plays a fragment of the idée fixe, then the guillotine blade comes down as a mighty chord from the orchestra. Pizzicato notes mark the severed head’s tumble into the basket.

Fifth Movement: Witches Sabbath. He dreams that he is present at a witches’ revel, surrounded by horrible spirits, amidst sorcerers and monsters in many fearful forms, who have come together for his funeral. Strange sounds, groans, shrill laughter, distant yells, which other cries seem to answer. The Beloved Melody is heard again, but it has lost its shy and noble character; it has become a vulgar, trivial and grotesque dance tune. She it is who comes to attend the witches’ meeting. Riotous howls and shouts greet her arrival. She joins the infernal orgy. Bells toll for the dead, a burlesque parody of the Dies Irae. The witches’ round dance. The dance and the Dies Irae are heard together.

Here is a nightmare vision in music: the horrible growls and squeaks of the beginning give way to the grotesque dance for witches and spirits. Berlioz here takes his revenge on the Beloved, who had scorned him: her oncelovely tune is made hideous and repellent.

The orchestral writing here is phenomenal: bells toll, clarinets squeal, the strings tap their bowsticks on the strings to imitate the sounds of skeletons dancing.

The first performance of the Symphonie fantastique on December 5, 1830 (six days before the composer’s 27th birthday) was a mixed success: the work had its ardent defenders as well as its bitter enemies. The storybook climax of this whole tale was that Harriet Smithson finally recognized the composer’s great passion for her, and they were married three years later. If this all sounds a little too good to be true, it was – the marriage was unhappy, the couple was divorced, and Harriet died after a long struggle with alcohol.

But this in no way detracts from the musical achievement of the Symphonie fantastique.

Berlioz looked deep within the nightmare depths of his own agonized soul and found there the material for a revolutionary new conception of music, music that was not an artistic abstraction but spoke directly from his own anguish, and he gave that torment a dazzling pictorial immediacy. Composers as different as Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Richard Strauss were among the many who would be directly influenced by this new conception of what music might be. n PROGRAM NOTES BY ERIC BROMBERGER

PERFORMANCE HISTORY

by Melvin G. Goldzband, Symphony Archivist Although this orchestra has performed works by Christopher Rouse before, this will be the first time it will have performed Bump. The Nielsen Flute Concerto was performed by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra only once before, in the 1984-85 season, when its then-principal flutist, Damien Bursill-Hall, was the soloist. Richard Hickox conducted.

The Berlioz Symphonie fantastique has been a consistent audience favorite at these concerts since its first hearing here when Earl Bernard Murray led the orchestra in its first presentation during the 1960-61 season. There have been twelve subsequent presentations, the most recent in the 2011-12 season, when Jahja Ling led the second of his two local performances of the work. Yoav Talmi also conducted the work twice here, first during a Berlioz Festival, and then for a Naxos recording with the SDSO. n

MUSIC IN MOTION: DANCE AND THE FIREBIRD FRIDAY March 18, 2016 – 8pm SATURDAY March 19, 2016 – 8pm SUNDAY March 20, 2016 – 2pm Conductor David

Danzmayr Harp Yolanda Kondonassis Malashock Dance GABRIELA FRANK: New Commission (featuring Malashock Dance) GINASTERA: Harp Concerto, Op. 25 STRAVINSKY: The Firebird (1945 version)

SANDIEGOSYMPHONY.COM Get Your Tickets Today!

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and the post, and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra has benefitted soundly (no pun intended) from his tenured presence.

Ben not only plays. In a sense, he also manages the horn section. He feels it has improved markedly, noting the addition of Danielle Kuhlmann as second horn, and Darby Hinshaw as his assistant principal horn (as well as utility horn). Tricia Skye has returned from her maternity leave to resume playing third horn, and the reliable veteran Doug Hall maintains his fourth horn chair. “I'm really very happy to have the whole section playing together again.”

HIT IT, SIEGFRIED! Meet Principal Horn Benjamin Jaber

by Dr. Melvin Goldzband, San Diego Symphony Archivist For the past eight years, Benjamin Jaber has graced our orchestra with the quality of his horn playing. It was last season, when Jahja Ling programmed the late Loren Maazel's sequence of purely orchestral passages from the Wagner Ring operas, when we first heard that stupendous Siegfried horn call played stupendously by our own principal horn. As Ben told me, when that music was being rehearsed and presented, “I'd get up every morning and play it, just to see if I've still got it.” He still has it.

It seems as if Ben Jaber had been destined for a career in music, born into a musical family in Philadelphia. His mother, a mezzosoprano, studied voice at the Academy of Vocal Arts, and his father, a pianist and organist, studied and taught at the renowned Curtis Institute of Music. He was also organist and choirmaster at Philadelphia's First Presbyterian Church. When Ben was six years old, the father moved the family to Houston to assume a position at the School of Music at Houston's Rice University.

Again, similar to his father's activities, Ben studied piano and organ, but when he was ten years old his father suggested that he consider playing the horn, as the senior Mr. Jaber had in middle and high school. Ben took to the instrument and found that he could actually produce a decent sound on it

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relatively easily, at least well enough to join the middle school band. His father played for Ben his vinyl recordings of the legendary Dennis Brain performing the Mozart Horn Concerti. Ben was still just ten years old when he met his first real horn teacher, the celebrated principal horn of the Houston Symphony, William Ver Meulen. Ben had already progressed enough by then to be taken under Ver Meulen's wing. Ben's senior year of high school was spent at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, after which he was accepted into Ver Meulen's highly competitive studio at Rice. “He nurtured my gift and my passion, and put me on the path to becoming a professional.”

After graduating from Rice, Ben Jaber joined the Louisiana Philharmonic as assistant first chair in New Orleans, but left after a year for Los Angeles where he attended the newlyopened Colburn Conservatory. He was the first horn player to be admitted there and to have graduated there. At Colburn he studied with another celebrated player, David Jolley. “He introduced me to a whole new vocabulary of horn playing, enabling me to make sounds I hadn't known the horn could make...” He also free-lanced in the Los Angeles area, and developed a number of relationships that still allow him to work in the recording studios.

Eventually Ben received a message from Jahja Ling's assistant, advising him to audition for our music director. That led to his becoming acting principal horn for that season, until official, multiple auditions would be held in the spring for a definite principal horn. He won that audition process

The first and third horns are the “high horns,” referring to the notes they play on the upper ranges of the staff. Symphony orchestras have horn quartets, with the second and fourth horns as the “low horns,” for harmony, similar to a vocal quartet.

The embouchure, the positioning of the lips within the mouthpiece, and the variations within that position, e. g., pursing, opening or closing a bit, etc., not only affects the notes to be played, it also determines whether the player is best suited for low or high horn playing. Ben told me that it is almost an anatomical decision as to where a horn player's abilities lie in either extreme of the range. The muscles controlling the embouchure and, additionally, even other contributing facial muscles, differ among individuals and create anatomically specialized playing in either the high or low spectrum. The principal is usually the player of horn solos. The result of all of their collective performance eminently satisfies listeners and critics who these days routinely compliment the SDSO’s horn section.

Ben Jaber has other functions as well, casting substitute and/or extra horns when needed as, e. g., in some Mahler symphonies.

He is a liaison to the rest of the orchestra on behalf of his section, as well as to the music director. He examines and checks the horn music parts, often rented. “We're all just now getting increasingly comfortable with each other,” and he thinks the same might be said for the whole orchestra, which he perceives with a demanding professional ear as performing increasingly, consistently better – no little thanks, I may add, to him. n

SAN DI E GO SYM P H O N Y O R C H E ST R A W I N T E R S E AS ON F E B R UAR Y 2016

SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

PATRON INFORMATION

TICKET OFFICE HOURS Jacobs Music Center Ticket Office (750 B Street) Monday through Friday, 10 am to 6 pm Concert Tuesdays through Fridays: 10 am through intermission Concert Weekends: 12 noon through intermission

be allowed into the concert hall.

They must be held by an adult and may not occupy a seat, unless they have a ticket.

SUBSCRIPTIONS San Diego Symphony Orchestra offers an attractive array of subscription options.

Subscribers receive the best available seats and (for Traditional subscribers) free ticket exchanges (up to 48 hours in advance for another performance within your series). Other subscriber-only benefits include priority notice of special events and (for certain packages) free parking.

For more information, call the Ticket Office at 619.235.0804.

UNUSED TICKETS Please turn in unused subscription tickets for resale to the Ticket Office or by mailing them to 1245 7th Ave., San Diego, CA 92101 (Attn: Ticket Office). Tickets must be turned in anytime up to 24 hours in advance of your concert. A receipt will be mailed acknowledging your tax-deductible contribution.

TICKET EXCHANGE POLICY • Aficionado subscribers may exchange into most Winter series concerts for free! All exchanges are based on ticket availability.

• Traditional subscribers receive the best available seats and may exchange to another performance within their series for free. Build Your Own subscribers and Non-subscribers can do the same, with a $5 exchange fee per ticket.

• Exchanged tickets must be returned to the Ticket Office 24 hours prior to the concert by one of the following ways: In person, by mail (1245 Seventh Ave., San Diego, CA 92101, Attn: Ticket Office) or by fax (619.231.3848).

LOST TICKETS San Diego Symphony concert tickets can be reprinted at the Ticket Office with proper ID. GROUP SALES Discount tickets for groups are available for both subscription and non-subscription concerts (excluding outside events). For further information, please call 619.615.3941.

YOUNGER AUDIENCES POLICY Jacobs Masterworks, Classical Specials, and Chamber Music: No children under five years of age will be allowed into the concert hall.

Children five and older must have a ticket and be able to sit in an unaccompanied seat.

City Lights, Jazz @ The Jacobs, International Passport, Fox Theatre Film Series: No children under the age of two years will be allowed into the concert hall. Children two and older must have a ticket and be able to sit in a seat.

Family Festival Concerts: Children three years and older must have a ticket and be able to sit in a seat. Babies and children two years old and younger who are accompanied by a parent will

P32 PE RFORMA NCES MAGA Z IN E

GIFT CERTIFICATES Gift certificates may be purchased in any amount at the Jacobs Music Center Ticket Office in person, online, by phone, or by mail.

They never expire!

Large-Print Programs: Large-print program notes are available for patrons at all Jacobs Masterworks concerts. Copies may be obtained from an usher.

PUBLIC RESTROOMS AND TELEPHONES Restrooms are located on the north and south ends of the upper lobby, and the north end of the lower lobby. An ADA compliant restroom is located on each floor. Please ask an usher for assistance at any time. Patrons may contact the nearest usher to facilitate any emergency telephone calls.

COUGH DROPS Complimentary cough suppressants are available to symphony patrons. Please ask our house staff for assistance.

QUIET ZONE Please turn all cellular and paging devices to the vibrate or off position upon entry into Symphony Hall. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated by fellow concertgoers and performers.

LOST & FOUND Report all lost and/or found items to your nearest usher. If you have discovered that you misplaced something after your departure from Jacobs Music Center, call the Facilities Department at 619.615.3909.

RECORDING DEVICES No unauthorized cameras or recording devices of any other kind are allowed inside the concert hall. Cell phone photography is not permitted.

PRE-CONCERT TALKS Patrons holding tickets to our Jacobs Masterworks Series concerts are invited to come early for “What’s The Score?” preperformance conversations beginning 45 minutes prior to all Jacobs Masterworks programs (Fridays and Saturdays, 7:15 pm; Sundays, 1:15 pm).

SMOKING POLICY Smoking is not permitted in Jacobs Music Center, its lobbies or the adjoining Symphony Towers lobby. Ashtrays can be found outside the building on both 7th Avenue and B Street.

ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES AND REFRESHMENTS Alcoholic beverages are available for sale in Jacobs Music Center lobbies before the concert and during intermission. Please have valid identification available and please drink responsibly. Refreshment bars offering snacks and beverages are located on both upper and lower lobbies for most events. Food and beverages are not allowed in performance chamber for concerts.

LATE SEATING Latecomers will be seated at an appropriate interval in the concert as determined by the house manager. We ask that you remain in your ticketed seat until the concert has concluded.

Should special circumstances exist or arise, please contact the nearest usher for assistance.

SPECIAL ACCOMMODATIONS Seating: ADA seating for both transfer and non-transfer wheelchairs, as well as restrooms, are available at each performance. Please notify the Ticket Office in advance at 619.235.0804, so that an usher may assist you.

Assistive Listening Devices: A limited number of hearing enhancement devices are available at no cost. Please ask an usher for assistance.

HALL TOURS Free tours of the Jacobs Music Center are given each month of the winter season. Check the “Jacobs Music Center” section of the website, or call 619.615.3955 for more details.

No reservations are necessary.

JACOBS MUSIC CENTER TICKET OFFICE 750 B Street (NE Corner of 7th and B, Downtown San Diego) San Diego, CA 92101 Phone: 619.235.0804 Fax: 619.231.3848 SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ADMINISTRATION OFFICE 1245 7th Avenue San Diego, CA 92101 Phone: 619.235.0800 Fax: 619.235.0005

Our Website: SanDiegoSymphony.com

Contact us to receive mailed or e-mailed updates about Orchestra events.

All artists, programs and dates are subject to change.

SAN DI E GO SYM P H O N Y O R C H E ST R A W I N T E R S E AS ON F E B R UAR Y 2016