Program Notes: Chamber Orchestra with David Danzmayr

FEBRUARY 23 CHAMBER ORCHESTRA WITH DAVID DANZMAYR THURSDAY February 23, 2017 – 7:30pm conductor David Danzmayr A CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES CONCERT

Performance at the Jacobs Music Center's Copley Symphony Hall

San Diego Symphony Chamber Music Series is generously underwritten by Sam B. Ersan.

PROGRAM

JOHANN STRAUSS, JR. (1825-99)

VILÉM TAUSKÝ (1910-2004)

An der schönen blauen Donau

(On the Beautiful Blue Danube), Op. 314 (1867) Coventry: Meditation for String Orchestra (1941)

INTERMISSION LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)

Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92 (1812)

Poco sostenuto - Vivace Allegretto Presto

Allegro con brio

The approximate running time for this concert, including intermission, is one hour and twenty minutes.

P 28 PERFORMAN C ES MAGA ZINE

S A N D I E G O SYM PH O NY O R C H E ST R A 2 0 1 6 -1 7 S E A S O N F EBR UA RY 2017

ABOUT THE CONDUCTOR

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA WITH DAVID DANZMAYR - FEBRUARY 23

DAVID DANZMAYR, CONDUCTOR

D

escribed by Scotland’s The Herald as “extremely good, concise, clear, incisive and expressive,” DAVID DANZMAYR is widely regarded as one of the most talented and exciting European conductors of his generation.

Mr. Danzmayr is currently in his fourth and final season as Music Director of the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra in Chicago, where he was lauded regularly by both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Classical Review for his programming of American composers as well as the quality of performances he and the orchestra achieved together.

Upon leaving his position at the IPO, he will assume the position of Chief Conductor of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra beginning with the 2016-17 season. As Chief Conductor Designate he led numerous concerts with the ZPO in 2015-16, including a concert at the Salzburg Festspielhaus on New Year’s Day, as well as a tour to Italy. Mr. Danzmayr has also completed his third season as Music Director of the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus as well as Artistic Advisor of the Breckenridge Music Festival.

Mr. Danzmayr has won prizes at some of the world´s most prestigious conducting

competitions, including a 2nd prize at the International Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition and prizes at the International Malko Conducting Competition. For his extraordinary success he has been awarded the Bernhard Paumgartner Medal by the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum.

Propelled by these early successes into a far reaching international career, Mr. Danzmayr has quickly become a sought-after guest conductor for renowned orchestras around the globe, having worked with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Mozarteum Orchester, Chicago Civic Orchestra, Lousiana Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Salzburg Chamber Philharmonic, Bruckner Orchester Linz, Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, to name a few.

Besides numerous re-invitations, future and current engagements include debuts with the Milwaukee Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Slovene Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the Detroit Symphony and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. He returns this season

SAN DIE GO SYMPHO NY O R C HES T R A 2016- 17 S EA SO N F E B R UA RY 2 0 1 7

to conduct the San Diego Symphony after his debut there last year.

Mr. Danzmayr frequently appears in the major concert halls around the globe, such as the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, Grosses Festspielhaus Salzburg, Usher Hall Edinburgh and Symphony Hall in Chicago.

He has served as Assistant Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, which he conducted in more than 70 concerts so far, performing in all the major Scottish concert halls and in the prestigious, Orkney based, St Magnus Festival. He has regularly been re-invited to the podium since then.

David Danzmayr received his musical training at the University Mozarteum in Salzburg where, after initially studying piano, he went on to study conducting in the class of Dennis Russell Davies. He finished his studies with the highest honors. Mr. Danzmayr was strongly influenced

by Pierre Boulez and Claudio Abbado in his time as conducting stipendiate of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and by Leif Segerstam during his additional studies in the conducting class of the Sibelius Academy. Subsequently he gained significant experience as assistant to Neeme Järvi, Stephane Deneve, Carlos Kalmar, Sir Andrew Davies and Pierre Boulez. n

PE R F O R MA N C E S MAGA Z INE P 29

ABOUT THE MUSIC

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA WITH DAVID DANZMAYR - FEBRUARY 23

An der schönen blauen Donau ( On the Beautiful Blue Danube), Op. 314 J O H A N N ST R AUSS II Born October 25, 1825, Vienna Died June 3, 1899, Vienna

On the Beautiful Blue Danube has become the most famous and best-loved of all Strauss waltzes, and so it is strange to learn that this waltz was originally composed for voices on an absurdly empty text by a minor Viennese police official. Not surprisingly, the music was a failure at its premiere on February 23, 1867, and – in a spectacular misjudgment of his own work – Strauss said: “The waltz was probably not catching enough.” But, freed of the text, it quickly caught on in a Vienna still recovering from military defeat the year before at the hands of the Prussians, and since then this waltz has become a virtual symbol of the city.

On the Beautiful Blue Danube is a celebration of the city’s setting and of the great river that runs through Vienna on its way (eventually) to the Black Sea. In a larger sense, this waltz is a celebration of Vienna itself, and it is worth quoting Strauss on the meaning of that city to him: “If it be true that I have some talent I owe its development to my beloved native city, Vienna. Vienna! I drink to her! May she grow and prosper!”

The Blue Danube, as it has become known, begins with a slow introduction full of the rich sound of horns and cellos, and gradually this is transformed into the opening waltz. There are in fact five different waltz-sequences in the Blue Danube, each of a slightly different character. These waltzes – by turns graceful, animated and always elegant – need little description: this is music simply to enjoy, and at the end Strauss drives his dances to a suitably sparkling close. n

Coventry: Meditation for String Orchestra V I L É M TAU S KÝ Born July 20, 1910, Prerov, Moravia Died March 16, 2004, London

First, a historical note. On the night of November 14-15, 1940, the Germans bombed the city of Coventry in the midlands P 30 PERFORMAN C ES MAGA ZINE

of England. That attack, which lasted eleven hours and involved 450 bombers, destroyed the center of Coventry, killed or wounded over a thousand people and cut every rail line out of the city. The All Clear was not sounded until 6:15 the next morning, and only then did the extent of the damage become clear. Among the structures destroyed were the Cathedral of St. Michael, built in the fourteenth century and the third tallest structure in England, two hospitals, police and postal stations, as well as the city’s water and gas supply.

Curiously, the destruction of Coventry inspired two pieces of music. One was Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, composed over 20 years later for the 1962 consecration of the rebuilt cathedral. The other, Vilém Tauský’s Coventry: Meditation for String Orchestra, was composed in the immediate aftermath of the raid. Tauský was an interesting figure. As a very young man, he was one of Leoš Janáĉek’s final students, and he made his early career as an opera conductor in Europe. But the rise of the Nazis and the war forced Tauský, who was Jewish, to flee first to France and then to England.

He spent the war years in England as a band leader for the Free Czech Army in exile, and after the war he decided to make his career in England. It was a distinguished career. Tauský served as music director for the Carl Rosa Opera Company and the Welsh National Opera. He was for some years conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, and for over 25 years he taught at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Tauský’s Free Czech Army unit was stationed in nearby Warwickshire in November 1940, and the morning after the raid they were called to Coventry to help search the ruins for survivors. Tauský was struck by the horrifying destruction of the city and by the strength of its citizens, and in response he composed a brief work for string quartet that he titled Coventry: Meditation. This was first performed in London in 1942 by the Menges Quartet, but Tauský later arranged it for string orchestra, and that is the version performed at the present concert. Though it is somber and spare music, the Meditation does not depict actual events nor does

it agonize. Tauský bases the piece on the ancient Czech anthem, the St. Wenceslas chorale, and that beautiful melody can be heard throughout the Meditation. The music grows more animated as it proceeds, but this eventually gives way to a quiet conclusion, as Tauský remembers Coventry’s suffering and takes note of the resilient spirit of a devastated city. n

Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92 LUDW I G VAN B EET HOVE N Born December 16, 1770, Bonn Died March 26, 1827, Vienna Beethoven turned 40 in December 1810.

Forty can be a difficult age for anyone, but for Beethoven things were going very well.

True, his hearing had deteriorated to the point where he was virtually deaf, but he was still riding that white-hot explosion of creativity that has become known, for better or worse, as his “Heroic Style.” Over the decade-long span of that style (18031813) Beethoven essentially re-imagined music and its possibilities. The works that crystalized the Heroic Style – the Eroica and the Fifth Symphony – unleashed a level of violence and darkness previously unknown in music, forces that Beethoven’s biographer Maynard Solomon has described as “hostile energy,” and then triumphed over them. In these violent symphonies, music became not a matter of polite discourse but of conflict, struggle and resolution.

In the fall of 1811, Beethoven began a new symphony – it would be his Seventh – and it would differ sharply from those two famous predecessors. Gone is the sense of cataclysmic struggle and hard-won victory that had driven those earlier symphonies. There are no battles fought and won in the Seventh Symphony; instead, this music is infused from its first instant with a mood of pure celebration. Such a spirit has inevitably produced a number of interpretations as to what this symphony is “about”: Berlioz heard a peasants’ dance in it, Wagner called it “the apotheosis of the dance,” and more recently Maynard Solomon has suggested that the Seventh is the musical representation of a festival, a brief moment of pure spiritual liberation.

S A N D I E G O SYM PH O NY O R C H E ST R A 2 0 1 6 -1 7 S E A S O N F EBR UA RY 2017

ABOUT THE MUSIC

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA WITH DAVID DANZMAYR - FEBRUARY 23

But it may be safest to leave the issue of “meaning” aside and instead listen to the Seventh simply as music. There had never been music like this before, nor has there been since – Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony contains more energy than any other piece of music ever written. Much has been made (correctly) of Beethoven’s ability to transform small bits of theme into massive symphonic structures, but in the Seventh he begins not so much with theme as with rhythm: he builds the entire symphony from what are almost scraps of rhythm, tiny figures that seem unpromising, even uninteresting, in themselves. Gradually he unleashes the energy locked up in these small figures and from them builds one of the mightiest symphonies ever written.

The first movement opens with a slow introduction so long that it almost becomes a separate movement of its own. Tremendous chords punctuate the slow beginning, which gives way to a poised duet for oboes. The real effect of this long Poco sostenuto, however, is to coil the energy that will be unleashed in the true first movement, and Beethoven conveys this rhythmically: the meter of the introduction is a rock-solid (even square) 4/4, but the main body of the movement, marked Vivace, transforms this into a light-footed 6/8. This Vivace begins in what seems a most unpromising manner, however, as woodwinds toot out a simple dotted 6/8 rhythm and the solo flute announces the first theme, a graceful melody on this same rhythm.

Beethoven builds the entire first movement from this simple dotted rhythm, which

saturates virtually every measure. As theme, as accompaniment, as motor rhythm, it is always present, hammering into our consciousness.

At the climax, horns sail majestically to the close as the orchestra thunders out that rhythm one final time.

The second movement, in A minor, is one of Beethoven’s most famous slow movements, but the debate continues as to whether it really is a slow movement. Beethoven could not decide whether to mark it Andante (a walking tempo) or Allegretto (a moderately fast pace). He finally decided on Allegretto, though the actual pulse is somewhere between those two. This movement too is built on a short rhythmic pattern, in this case the first five notes (long-short-shortlong-long), and this pattern repeats here almost as obsessively as the pattern of the first movement. The opening sounds like a series of static chords – the theme itself occurs quietly inside those chords – and Beethoven simply repeats this theme, varying it as it proceeds. The central episode in A Major moves gracefully along smoothlyflowing triplets before a little fugato on the opening rhythms builds to a great climax.

Beethoven winds the movement down on the woodwinds’ almost skeletal reprise of the fundamental rhythm.

The Scherzo explodes to life on a theme full of grace notes, powerful accents, flying staccatos and timpani explosions.

This alternates with a trio section for winds reportedly based on an old pilgrims’ hymn, though no one, it seems, has been able to

identify that exact hymn. Beethoven offers a second repeat of the trio, then seems about to offer a third before five abrupt chords drive the movement to its close.

These chords set the stage for the Allegro con brio, again built on the near-obsessive treatment of a short rhythmic pattern, in this case the movement’s opening four-note fanfare. This four-note pattern punctuates the entire movement: it shapes the beginning of the main theme, and its stinging accents thrust the music forward continuously as this movement almost boils over with energy. The ending is remarkable: above growling cellos and basses (which rock along on a two-note ostinato for 28 measures), the opening theme drives to a climax that Beethoven marks fff (triple forte), a dynamic marking he almost never used. This conclusion is virtually Bacchanalian in its wild power; no matter how many times one has heard it, the ending of the Seventh Symphony remains one of the most exciting moments in all of music.

The first performance of the Seventh Symphony took place in the Great Hall of the University in Vienna on December 8, 1813.

Though nearly deaf at this point, Beethoven led the performance, and the orchestra was able to compensate for his handicap, so that the premiere was a huge success. On that occasion – and at three subsequent performances over the next few months – the audience demanded that the second movement be repeated.

-PROGRAM NOTES BY ERIC BROMBERGER

BRAHMS WITH BRONFMAN

WED MAY 24—7:30pm

Yefim Bronfman, piano | CHAMBER MUSIC | JACOBS MUSIC CENTER Members of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra JOHANNES BRAHMS: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 Other Chamber Works of Brahms

Tickets and Information SANDIEGOSYMPHONY.ORG • 619.235.0804

SAN DIE GO SYMPHO NY O R C HES T R A 2016- 17 S EA SO N F E B R UA RY 2 0 1 7

PE R F O R MA N C E S MAGA Z INE P 31