PROGRAM WITOLD LUTOSŁAWSKI Mala suita (Little Suite) Fife
Hurra pulka
Song Dance WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219: Turkish
Allegro aperto
Adagio JEFF THAYER
Rondo: Tempo di menuetto
Jeff Thayer, violin
Friday, November 30 | 8PM Sunday, December 2 | 2PM
MOZART AND DVOŘÁK
INTERMISSION ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 6 in D Major, Op. 60
Allegro non tanto
Adagio
Scherzo (Furiant): Presto
Finale: Allegro con spirito
A Jacobs Masterworks Concert
conductor Johannes Debus violin Jeff Thayer All performances at the Jacobs Music Center's Copley Symphony Hall
This concert is made possible, in part, through the generosity of Dorothea Laub.
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The approximate running time for this concert, including intermission, is one hour and fifty-five minutes.
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PROGRAM NOTES | MOZART AND DVOŘÁK – NOVEMBER 30 & DECEMBER 2
ABOUT THE CONDUCTOR JOHANNES DEBUS has been Music Director of the Canadian Opera Company since 2009, having been appointed immediately following his debut. The 2018-19 season includes Debus’s debuts with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, and Milwaukee Symphony, and return engagements with the Frankfurt Radio, Toronto and San Diego Symphonies. In summer 2019, Debus makes his Opera Santa Fe debut conducting Jenůfa. Highlights of the 2017-18 season included a return to the Metropolitan Opera conducting The Tales of Hoffmann; debuts with the Seattle, Oregon, and Kansas City Symphonies and the Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa; and a return to the Bregenz Festival conducting the Austrian premiere of Goldschmidt’s Beatrice Cenci with the Vienna Symphony. Debus conducts regularly at the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Staatsoper unter den Linden Berlin and Frankfurt Opera. He has appeared in new productions at English National Opera and Opéra National de Lyon. He made his debut at the BBC Proms with Britten’s Sinfonia in 2014, and conducted a new production of The Tales of Hoffmann at the 2015 Bregenz Festival. As guest conductor, he has appeared at several international festivals such as the Biennale di Venezia and Schwetzingen Festivals, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Lincoln Center Festival, Ruhrtriennale, Suntory Summer Festival, and Spoleto Festival. He has appeared with The Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonia in London. Debus graduated from the Hamburg Conservatoire before being engaged as répétiteur and, subsequently, Kapellmeister by Frankfurt Opera where he acquired an extensive repertoire from Mozart to Thomas Adès. At home in both contemporary music and the core repertoire, he has conducted a wide range of world premieres and works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He has collaborated with internationally-acclaimed ensembles such
Concert Sponsor Spotlight
DOROTHEA LAUB
DOROTHEA LAUB joined the Symphony Stars in the 1980’s and she has been a lifelong supporter of the symphony orchestras in every town she lived in for over 60 years.
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as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, and Musikfabrik. He enjoys an ongoing relationship with the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. n
ABOUT THE ARTIST Violinist JEFF THAYER holds the Deborah Pate and John Forrest Concertmaster Chair of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. Thayer is also a founding member of the Camera Lucida chamber music ensemble, in residence at UCSD’s Conrad Prebys Music Center. Previous positions include assistant concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, associate concertmaster of the North Carolina Symphony and concertmaster of the Canton (OH) Symphony Orchestra. Thayer was also formerly on the violin faculty of the Music Academy of the West where he also served as concertmaster for 13 years. He is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division. His teachers include Zvi Zeitlin, Donald Weilerstein, Dorothy DeLay and William Preucil. A native of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Thayer began violin lessons with his mother at the age of three. At 14 he studied for a year at the Conservatorio Superior in Cordoba, Spain. He has appeared as soloist with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Jupiter Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, the Canton Symphony Orchestra, the Pierre Monteux School Festival Orchestra, the Spartanburg Philharmonic, the Cleveland Institute of Music Symphony Orchestra, The Music Academy of the West Festival Orchestra, the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra, the Nittany Valley Symphony Orchestra and the Conservatory Orchestra of Cordoba, among others. He attended Keshet Eilon (Israel), Ernen Musikdorf (Switzerland), Music Academy of the West, Aspen, New York String Orchestra Seminar, the Quartet Program, and as the 1992 Pennsylvania Governor Scholar, Interlochen Arts Camp. Other festivals include Interlochen, the Pierre Monteux Festival, Astoria Music Festival, the National Orchestral Institute, the National Youth Symphony, the Grand Teton Music Festival, Astoria Music Festival, Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla SummerFest, Mainly Mozart Festival (San Diego), Festival der Zukunft and the Tibor Varga Festival (Switzerland). Thayer’s awards include the Stephen Hahn/Lillybelle Foundation Award in Violin from the Music Academy of the West, the Starling Foundation Award, the George Eastman Scholarship and the Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. Thayer was a laureate of the Wieniawski Violin Competition (2001) as well as winner of various competitions, including the Tuesday Musical Club Scholarship Auditions in Akron, OH (2000), the Cleveland Institute of Music Concerto Competition (1999), the Fort Collins Symphony Young Artist Competition (1999), the American String Teacher’s Association Competition in Pennsylvania and Delaware (1997), the Gladys Comstock Summer Scholarship Competition P ERFO RM A N C ES MAG A Z I N E
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PROGRAM NOTES | MOZART AND DVOŘÁK – NOVEMBER 30 & DECEMBER 2 (1993), the Ithaca College Solo Competition and the Phyllis Triolo Competition (1992). Through a generous gift to the SDSO from Joan and Irwin Jacobs and the Jacobs' Family Trust, Jeff Thayer performs on the 1708 "Bagshawe" Stradivarius. n
ABOUT THE MUSIC MUSIC FROM CENTRAL EUROPE All three works on this program were composed in Central Europe, and all three are very attractive music. So attractive, in fact, that one might not guess that they all reflect some of the tensions that have afflicted the region of their creation. Lutosławski’s charming Mala suita (Little Suite) was composed at a time when communist authorities had locked their artists into a suffocating straitjacket, allowing them to create only “politically correct” works. The last movement of Mozart’s Turkish Concerto charms audiences today, but it reminds us that in the eighteenth century Turkey (and all the forces to the east) were a threat to the Hapsburg Empire, a threat that sometimes brought war. But the Hapsburg Empire could in turn be quite threatening itself – the Vienna Philharmonic refused to play the Dvořák symphony on this program because it did not want to promote non-Germanic composers. Dvořák had to go to Prague to get it premiered. n
Mala suita (Little Suite) WITOLD LUTOSŁAWSKI Born January 25, 1913, Warsaw Died February 7, 1994, Warsaw A pretty tough story lurks behind this gentle little piece. Witold Lutosławski graduated from the Warsaw Conservatory in 1937, but his plans to study in Paris were thwarted by the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. Lutosławski served as a radio operator in the Polish army but was captured by the Nazis. He escaped, walked 250 miles back to Warsaw, and went underground. The Nazis banned concerts during the war, and Lutosławski supported himself by playing the piano in nightclubs until the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto forced him to flee that city – he lost all his early compositions when that part of the city was destroyed. After the war, Poland fell under the domination of the Soviets, who enforced a rigorously simplistic artistic doctrine: all art must be accessible to the masses, inspiring and uncomplicated. When Lutosławski’s First Symphony was premiered in 1948, Russian critics walked out, the Polish vice-minister of culture remarked that Lutosławski should be thrown under a streetcar, and further performances were banned.
music based on folk songs, and here Lutosławski turned to the model of a composer he greatly admired, Béla Bartók (though the irony of course is that Bartók’s music was banned by the Soviets for its “formalism”). In 1950, two years after the debacle of his First Symphony, Lutosławski had a request from Warsaw Radio for a piece based on folklore. For that commission he composed his Little Suite, and it was premiered the same year by what the official catalog of his works describes as “a light-music chamber orchestra.” The Little Suite proved a success, and the following year Lutoslawski arranged it for full symphony orchestra. This version was successfully premiered by the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Grzegorz Fitelberg on April 20, 1951. Lutosławski’s model for the Little Suite may well have been Bartók’s charming Romanian Folk Dances of 1915, in which Bartók orchestrated and briefly extended folk dance tunes. Lutosławski chose folk tunes from around the village of Máchow in the far southeastern corner of Poland and used them to compose his Little Suite, whose four movements span barely ten minutes. Fajurka (that title translates as “fife”) opens appropriately with the bright sound of piccolo stamping out the principal theme; this is developed energetically, and the opening melody returns to close out the movement. The curious thing about the Hurra Polka (Hurray Polka) is that it dances in a triple meter rather than the duple meter we expect of the polka. A melancholy clarinet solo opens Piosenka (Song), but this quiet opening quickly builds to a strident climax before the music subsides to its quiet close. The vivacious concluding Taniec (Dance) does indeed dance brightly before giving way to a singing, surging central episode; the opening material returns, but Lutosławski rounds off the Little Suite with a brisk and emphatic coda. What are we to make of this gentle and apparently well-behaved piece of music? Is it the work of an obedient servant intent on satisfying repressive authorities? Or is it perhaps something more significant? When he wrote the Little Suite, Lutosławski was working within tight strictures, but he recognized – just as Bartók had before him – that there were possibilities within folk music. In Little Suite he refines his technique carefully: he presents the folk tunes, develops them crisply and subtly, and orchestrates them cleanly and brightly. Lutosławski’s use of folk material would culminate in his Concerto for Orchestra of 1954, in which folk tunes are broken down into component intervals and bits and used as the basis for a brilliant orchestral work. The Concerto for Orchestra was a sort of break-out work for Lutosławski. Its success, and gradually relaxing government control, allowed him to compose serial music and later music based in part on chance. By the time he reached an authentic voice as a composer, Lutosławski had left his early folk-inspired pieces far behind. But the Little Suite remains one of the most popular of his early works. n
Serious composers found that any thought of developing according to their own ideals was impossible. Lutosławski’s good friend Andrzej Panufnik fled to the West in 1954 and made his career in England, but Lutosławski chose to remain in Warsaw, where he found his options limited: he was free to compose film scores, patriotic choruses and children’s songs. A further possibility was
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PROGRAM NOTES | MOZART AND DVOŘÁK – NOVEMBER 30 & DECEMBER 2 Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219: Turkish
Symphony No. 6 in D Major, Op. 60
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg Died December 5, 1791, Vienna
ANTONIN DVOŘÁK Born September 8, 1841, Muhlhausen, Bohemia Died May 1, 1904, Prague
Mozart’s twenty-seven piano concertos span his career, but he wrote only five violin concertos, and these all come from his teenage years. The absence of more concertos for violin is surprising, given the fact that Mozart was admired as much for his violin playing as for his piano playing. Mozart wrote his First Violin Concerto in 1773, and the remaining four come from June, September, October and December 1775. Each shows clear development over the previous one, and the Fifth – written the month before Mozart’s twentieth birthday – has become the most popular of the set.
In November 1879 Hans Richter led the Vienna Philharmonic in a performance of Dvořák’s Third Slavonic Rhapsody. Dvořák, who was sitting with his friend Brahms at that concert, reported that the applause was so strong that he was called to the stage, and on the spot Richter asked him for a new symphony. Dvořák wrote that symphony, which we know today as his Sixth, the following summer. He retreated to his summer home at Vysoká, and there – in the quiet forests and fields of the Czech countryside – he set to work on August 27, 1880. Dvořák was a fast worker: he had the symphony done by October 15, Richter was enthusiastic about it, and Dvořák hoped that it would be performed that fall. But at this point awkward problems arose. The Vienna Philharmonic was a very conservative organization, and some of its members objected to playing works by Dvořák – a foreign composer – in successive seasons. Richter tried to keep this a secret from the composer, explaining the delay as the result of illnesses within his own family, but finally Dvořák gave up and asked permission to have the symphony premiered elsewhere. Adolf Čech led the Czech Philharmonic in the first performance on March 25, 1881 (which was, coincidentally, the day Béla Bartók was born), and the audience was so enthusiastic that the symphony’s third movement had to be repeated on the spot. The Sixth was quickly performed throughout Europe, Theodore Thomas led the American premiere in New York in 1883, and Dvořák himself conducted it in London and St. Petersburg. Despite the awkwardnesses surrounding the premiere, Dvořák remained grateful to Richter and dedicated the symphony to him (and it should be noted that Richter himself eventually did conduct the Sixth Symphony).
The concerto’s many imaginative touches are evident from the very beginning. A vigorous orchestral introduction marked Allegro aperto (aperto means clear or distinct) opens the movement, but the entrance of the soloist brings a surprise: instead of pressing ahead at the initial tempo, the music slows to an Adagio, and over murmuring string accompaniment the violinist makes a simple and graceful entrance. The Allegro aperto suddenly resumes, and now the violinist plays the true opening theme, a variation of its slow first statement. This energetic movement takes its character from this soaring idea. By contrast, the Adagio is poised and melodic. Mozart switches to an unexpected key – E Major, a key he almost never used – and the violin picks up and develops the orchestra’s lyric opening idea. Gradually, though, the music becomes more complex – the violin’s melodic line is encrusted with trills and decorations and moves into minor keys. The last movement, a rondo in the form of a minuet, is the most original. Solo violin immediately lays out the minuet theme and is answered by the orchestra. All seems set for a standard rondofinale, but partway through Mozart bursts in suddenly with an Allegro that disrupts everything. The interruption is by “Turkish” music, and because of it this concerto is sometimes nicknamed the “Turkish.” In eighteenth-century Europe there was a fascination with all things Turkish, but it was an ambivalent fascination. The East might produce coffee, tea, silk and spice, but it also brought the threat of military invasion, so there was an element of danger mixed in with the exotic. This fascination also showed up in European music of the era, where Turkish music generally meant “exotic” music, featuring vigorous rhythms and noisy percussion instruments. This fashion can be seen in Mozart’s own opera The Abduction from the Seraglio and in works by many other composers (Beethoven’s Turkish March, for example). Here it takes the form of vigorous leaps, grace notes, thumping rhythms and chromatic growls from the orchestra. The minuet-rondo resumes, and the concerto closes with a wonderful touch: the music suddenly vanishes in mid-phrase, as easily as something disappearing into mist. Mozart would go on to write over 400 more works after completing this concerto, but none of them would be a violin concerto. The Fifth Violin Concerto – and the promise contained within this music – makes Mozart’s failure to write another violin concerto all the more painful. n S A N D I EG O SYMPHONY ORC HESTRA 2018-19 SE ASON D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 8
Despite its successful launch, however, the Sixth Symphony has not held the stage in the way that Dvořák’s final symphonies have. Those three symphonies – the dramatic Seventh, the lyrical Eighth, and the epic New World Symphony – have become regular features of our concert life, but the Sixth Symphony has so slipped into the shade that performances today are rare. Which is too bad, because this is an attractive piece of music, full of Dvořák’s characteristic virtues–attractive themes, rhythmic energy and a flair for the dramatic. The Sixth has a very unassuming beginning, however. Over quietlypulsing chords comes a gentle theme that has reminded many of the beginning of Brahms’ Second Symphony, also in D Major. Quickly comes another surprise: that gentle opening theme rises up, takes on strength, and suddenly shows that it has some dramatic bite. Dvořák sets this off with the oboe’s almost delicate second idea, and these will be the materials for this extended sonataform movement. The movement is not as extended as it might be: Dvořák had originally written in a repeat of the entire opening section, but when he was preparing his manuscript for publication, he made clear that he did not want this repeat to be taken, noting in the manuscript: “Once and for all, without repetition.” The long development leads to a powerful coda and grand climax stamped out by trumpets and horns. The subdued opening of the Adagio is deceiving, for this movement
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PROGRAM NOTES | MOZART AND DVOŘÁK – NOVEMBER 30 & DECEMBER 2 will erupt in great explosions of sound across its long span. Dvořák sets these off with some of his loveliest writing – this is a movement of extremes, from whispering lyricism to powerful outbursts. The third movement, the one that had to be repeated at the premiere, has always been the most popular in the symphony. Dvořák calls it a Furiant, an old Czech dance built on constantly-shifting meters, but as countless commentators have pointed out, Dvořák does not shift meters in this movement – the entire movement is in 3/4. He does, though, arrange his phrasing so that the stress often does not fall on the downbeat, and so this music feels fresh and full of rhythmic surprises; it is fast (Dvořák’s marking is Presto) and exhilarating to hear. The central episode, which slows down a little, features the silvery sound of the piccolo before accelerating back into the opening section. The finale is another movement that has reminded many of Brahms’ Second Symphony. In fact, Dvořák appears almost to have “lifted” the opening of this movement from the finale of Brahms’ symphony: both begin quietly with themes of similar shape, and both soon explode with energy. But there are worse models than Brahms’ Second, and there is enough authentic Dvořák here to satisfy any listener. Particularly exciting is the very ending, where racing strings propel this symphony to its conclusion on a series of D Major chords that should ring throughout the hall. -Program notes by Eric Bromberger n
IN MEMORIAM
Thomas Morgan FEBRUARY 1, 1962 – OCTOBER 21, 2018
Performance History
by Dr. Melvin G. Goldzband, San Diego Symphony Archivist The Little Suite by Lutosławski is being heard for the first time at these concerts. The last and perhaps the most popular of Mozart's five violin concertos, the so-called Turkish concerto, was introduced to San Diego Symphony audiences when Yehudi Menuhin played it here during the 1972-73 season. Peter Erős conducted. Most recently, Augustin Hadelich played it under Jahja Ling's direction during the 2011-12 season, for its eighth hearing at these concerts. The Dvořák Sixth Symphony was first played at these concerts under the direction of Charles Groves during the 1980-81 season. Since then, it has been repeated here five times, most recently under Jahja Ling's direction during the 2012-13 season. n
Longtime San Diego Symphony Orchestra violist Thomas Morgan has passed away. Throughout his 30-year career with the Orchestra, beginning in October of 1988, Tom was known and appreciated by his colleagues as a meticulous and elegant performer with a tremendous work ethic and a broad knowledge of the SDSO’s classical repertoire. Tom spent his San Diego career under the batons of Yoav Talmi, JungHo Pak and Jahja Ling, as well as numerous internationally acclaimed guest conductors. He was also playing and giving critical feedback throughout the Orchestra’s recent music director search which resulted in the hiring of Music Director Designate Rafael Payare. In his spare time Tom would occasionally freelance and teach privately. Before coming to San Diego, Tom earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music and his Master of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Earlier in his career he performed with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, the Tulsa Philharmonic, the Aspen Chamber Symphony, the Aspen Festival Orchestra and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.
JOHN WILLIAMS AND THOMAS MORGAN
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An avid and dedicated fan of all things Star Wars- and Star Trek-related, Tom took special joy in interactions with composers John Williams and Michael Giacchino during their recent San Diego Symphony visits. Tom was well known within the Symphony family for his wry, unique sense of humor, his frequent visits to San Diego Comic-Con and Star Trek conventions, his blue horse-hair bow and his love for coffee-dates with friends. He also enjoyed sharing his photography taken during frequent visits to area mountains and deserts. Tom will be deeply missed by his many friends and colleagues in the San Diego Symphony family, who wish to express their deepest condolences to his family.
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