DUDAMEL CONDUCTS FALLA AND RAVEL

THURSDAY JULY 6, 2023 8PM

Los Angeles Philharmonic Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

Javier Perianes, piano

MUSSORGSKY, Night on Bald Mountain (c. 11 minutes)

Arr. RIMSKY-KORSAKOV

FALLA Nights in the Gardens of Spain (c. 27 minutes)

In the Gardens of the Generalife

A Dance Is Heard in the Distance

In the Gardens of Sierra de Córdoba

Javier Perianes

INTERMISSION

RAVEL Mother Goose Suite (c. 16 minutes)

Sleeping Beauty

Little Tom Thumb

Empress of the Pagodas

Beauty and the Beast

The Fairy Garden

DUKAS The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (c. 12 minutes)

Moritaka Kina is chief piano technician for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.

This performance is generously supported by The José Iturbi Foundation

Pianos provided by Steinway Piano Gallery—Beverly Hills

Programs and artists subject to change.

NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881)

Mussorgsky tried many times to write the music that we know today as Night on Bald Mountain, and he never got it into satisfactory form. He first had the idea for this music in 1860, when at age 21 he thought about writing an opera based on Gogol’s story St. John’s Eve Soon this turned into plans for a one-act opera based on Baron Mengden’s play The Witches, and at the center of both of these was to be a horrifying witches’ sabbath. But these plans for a stage work came to nothing. Then in 1867 Mussorgsky told RimskyKorsakov that he had completed what he called a “tone-picture” for orchestra, now titled St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain. He was very proud of this music, saying that he considered “this wicked prank of mine a really Russian and original achievement, quite free from German profundity and routine, born...on Russian soil and nurtured on Russian corn.”

And then to Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky made a defiant statement that would prove spectacularly wrong: “Let it clearly be understood...that I shall never start remodeling it; with whatever shortcomings it is born, and with them it must live if it is to live at all.” This high resolve lasted until Mussorgsky’s mentor Mily Balakirev saw the score, savaged it, and refused to allow it to be performed.

Badly stung, Mussorgsky set the manuscript aside. He liked the music well enough that he kept reworking it, but he never heard any of these versions before he died of alcohol poisoning in a Moscow sanitarium at age 42.

In the years after his death, the composer’s friends tried to get his chaotic manuscripts into performing order, and in 1886 Rimsky-Korsakov turned to the St. John’s Eve music. Instead of simply going back to Mussorgsky’s purely orchestral version of 1867, Rimsky felt free to draw upon the music in all of its subsequent incarnations: “When I started putting it in order with the intention of creating a workable concert piece, I took everything I considered the best and most appropriate out of the late composer’s remaining materials to give coherence and wholeness to this work.”

Mussorgsky took as his starting point the old Russian legend of a witches’ sabbath on St. John’s Night (June 23-24) on Mount Triglav near Kiev. That legend tells of midnight revels led by the god Chernobog (sometimes depicted as a black goat), festivities that come to an end with the break of day.

In this age of authenticity, we are automatically suspicious of Rimsky’s complaint that Mussorgsky’s versions “remained unpolished,” and so we should remember that his motives were generous–he had been Mussorgsky’s friend, he liked this music, and he wanted it to find an audience. But Rimsky, for all his virtues, was not Mussorgsky, and his version is not so much a re-orchestration as it is a re-composition. He based his edition largely on Mussorgsky’s choral version in Sorochyntsi Fair, eliminating large sections of the original in the process, and he brought his own considerable skills as an orchestrator to this score, clarifying textures and–even in this dark music–giving it a lighter, brighter sound. His version, quite polished but far from “the Russian soil” of the original, has nevertheless become one of the most popular works in the literature. —Eric Bromberger

Nights In The Gardens Of Spain

Manuel de Falla (1876–1946)

Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain presents a moody and remarkably diverse look at the composer’s homeland—but then again, Falla was a diverse composer in general. Although an avowed nationalist in musical tone (he collected and arranged Spanish folk songs), Falla composed works that range in subject from ballet to opera to a remarkable 1926 concerto for harpsichord and five instruments.

Nights in the Gardens of Spain was completed in Spain during World War I, but it was conceived during one of the composer’s stays in France. Despite Falla’s overt connection to the music of his homeland, he considered his best periods as an artist to be the ones he spent in Paris.

Nights in the Gardens of Spain is a pure flight of fancy— rich, dark, and mysterious. Formally, the work consists of three connected nocturnes much in the style of Debussy, whom Falla admired; yet they are Debussy-like only in suggestions of structure— the notes themselves are permeated by Falla’s own voice. With such an evocative title, the question must be asked: is Nights in the Gardens of Spain program music, music for its own sake, or something in between? Falla himself devoted some thought to the question of Nights as program music, writing that “If these ‘symphonic impressions’ have achieved their object, the mere enumeration of their titles should be a sufficient guide to the hearer. Although in this work—as in all which have a legitimate claim to be considered as music— the composer has allowed a definite design,…the end for which it was written is no other than to evoke places, sensations, and sentiments. The music has no pretensions to being descriptive; it is merely expressive. But something more than the sound of festivals and dances has inspired these ‘evocations in sound,’ for melancholy and mystery have their part also.”

That said, we are left to view the work as a dramatic portrait of the Andalusia the composer so loved. The first movement could well stand alone, its writing elegant while still retaining heavy influences of flamenco form and guitar writing. But standing the first movement on its own feet would neglect the dramatic, sensual intensity of the second—a brief, darkly playful dance that acts almost as a bridge between sections—and its segue into the devilishly dramatic third movement. After an all-out orchestral storm in the opening, a remarkably crystalline, guitarinspired series of phrases appears, set for piano over hazy strings. The drama returns, and the piece roars through its final five minutes with a mixture of harsh fullorchestra interruptions and expansive romances for piano and strings, fading quickly into an elegant, quiet close. —Jessica Schilling

MA MÈRE L’OYE (MOTHER GOOSE) SUITE

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)

The phenomenal success of Ravel’s “greatest hits” (especially the almost notorious Bolero) may blind us to the subtleties of his most enchanting works. There are in fact several “versions” of his Mother Goose, and some clarification may be called for. The music began life in 1908 with the creation of a single movement for piano duet, Sleeping Beauty’s Pavane. (Ravel’s famous Pavane for a Dead Princess had been written nine years earlier, in 1899.) Four more duets were composed in 1910, and the Suite (now named Mother Goose and given a fascinating subtitle which translates literally as “Five Infantile [or Childish] Pieces”) was premiered in Paris almost immediately thereafter. It was only after a request for a ballet score that the composer orchestrated the originals and expanded the work, adding a prelude, several connecting sections, and one entirely new episode, as well as revising the sequence of the five original scenes. Tonight’s performance presents the music in the composer’s original, pre-ballet sequence.

As with most of Ravel’s orchestrations of his piano scores, there is no trace of the original sound world. The refinement of the textures Ravel utilizes to re-create this music in orchestral terms is an endless source of wonderment. After the moody opening “Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant,” we are transported to the forest (“Petit Poucet”), where Tom Thumb’s trail of crumbs is the victim of various songbirds. A colorful and exotic depiction of things Chinese follows, as “Laideronnette, Impératrice des pagodes” bathes while being entertained with musical walnutshells and almond-shells. Then comes “Les Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête,” which British writer Gerald Larner described as “Ravel’s first-ever love scene.” This is no Disneyfied Beauty and the Beast, though, and the transformation of the Beast leads to a hymn-like but eventually ecstatic celebration of nature in “Le Jardin féerique.” The radiant orchestration is quintessential Ravel. —Dennis

Bade

THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE

Paul Dukas (1865–1935)

The Frenchman Paul Dukas composed The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in 1897; the work would become his main claim to fame, enjoying far-reaching popularity and success. A very methodical (read “painstakingly slow”), highly self-critical musician who destroyed many of his compositions before his death, Dukas considered himself a teacher who composed. Even so, he managed to turn out several large-scale works in addition to his one big hit.

As for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, it deserves the esteem in which it is held. A legitimate child of the 19th century’s much celebrated wedding of music and literature, the descriptive tone poem, the work operates on quite as high a level of distinction as the ranking compositions in the genre by Liszt and Strauss.

The composition’s musical storytelling is remarkably graphic, although for the many who have seen the Disney animation in the film Fantasia, a hearing of the piece may bring to mind Mickey Mouse. No matter. The music alone, sans Mouse, su ces to tell the tale propounded in a ballad by the great German author and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The picture comes into focus right from the start. Mysterious strings set the atmosphere of the sorcerer’s workshop. (No less than Stravinsky “borrowed” this opening for his early Fireworks.) The apprentice, alone, discovers enough of his master’s magic (trumpets) to bring a broom to life (bassoon). The broom performs the apprentice’s chore—that of fetching water from the river. Enough water soon becomes too much (orchestral agitation), but the distraught lad cannot find the “stopping” incantation. In desperation, he chops the broom in two, but now the work is done at twice the speed by the broom halves (bassoon and bass clarinet). Bedlam. Flood disaster is imminent. But the sorcerer returns, speaks the magic words (trumpets again), the brooms are stilled, and the calm, as at the beginning, is restored. Four quick chords at the end suggest the sorcerer has delivered that number of disciplinary strokes to the mischievous apprentice.

—Orrin Howard

Gustavo Dudamel

To read about Music & Artistic Director GUSTAVO DUDAMEL, please turn to page 12

Javier Perianes

The international career of Javier Perianes has led him to perform in the most prestigious concert halls with the world’s foremost orchestras, working with celebrated conductors including Daniel Barenboim, Charles Dutoit, Zubin Mehta, Gustavo Dudamel, Klaus Mäkelä, Gianandrea Noseda, Gustavo Gimeno, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Vladimir Jurowski, and François-Xavier Roth.

The 2022/23 season featured an array of high-profile concerts. Perianes debuted with the Dallas Symphony and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and returned to Budapest Festival Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Luxembourg, Comunitat

Valenciana, Barcelona, and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. With Juanjo Mena, Perianes toured with Orquesta Sinfonica de Madrid to perform at Carnegie Hall. Later in the season, he returned to the U.S. to appear with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and at the Mainly Mozart Festival. The season also included residencies with Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia and Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León and a return to Australia, where Perianes made his first appearance with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and continued a multiyear complete Beethoven concerto cycle with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Simone Young.

Perianes frequently appears in recital across the globe and is also a natural and keen chamber musician, regularly collaborating with violist Tabea Zimmermann and the Quiroga Quartet and appearing at festivals such as the BBC Proms, Lucerne, Salzburg Whitsun, La Roque d’Anthéron, Grafenegg, Prague Spring, Ravello, Stresa, San Sebastian, Santander, Granada, Vail, Blossom, and Ravinia. This season, he toured a program titled Crossroads, featuring works by Clara and Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, as well as Granados’ Goyescas, with recitals at Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal, Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Wigmore Hall, Rheingau Musik Festival, Sydney City Recital Hall, Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional de Música, Barcelona’s Palau de la Musica, and in Milan, among other platforms.

Career highlights have included concerts with the Wiener Philhamoniker; Leipzig Gewandhausorchester; the Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco symphony orchestras; Washington’s

National, Yomiuri Nippon, and Danish National symphony orchestras; the Oslo, London, New York, Los Angeles, and Czech philharmonic orchestras; Orchestre de Paris; Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal; and the Cleveland and Philharmonia orchestras; the Swedish and Norwegian radio orchestras; the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; Budapest Festival Orchestra; and RundfunkSinfonieorchester Berlin.

Recording exclusively for harmonia mundi, Perianes has developed a diverse discography ranging from Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Grieg, Chopin, Debussy, Ravel, and Bartók to Blasco de Nebra, Mompou, Falla, Granados, and Turina. The 2020/21 season saw the release of Jeux de Miroirs and Cantilena. Together with Tabea Zimmerman, in April 2020 he released Cantilena, a celebration of music from Spain and Latin America. His other albums pay tribute to Claude Debussy on the centenary of his death, including a recording of The Late Works (with Jean-Guihen Queyras), which won a Gramophone Award in 2019. In July 2021, Perianes released his latest album, featuring Chopin’s Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3. He was awarded the National Music Prize in 2012 by the Ministry of Culture of Spain and named Artist of the Year at the International Classical Music Awards in 2019. javierperianes.com