SSO subscription concert
Petrushka • Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 24 MAR 2017 FRI | ESPLANADE concert hall Performing Home of the SSO
LAN SHUI Music Director
24 MAR 2017 | FRI
Petrushka • Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 Singapore Symphony Orchestra Okko Kamu, conductor
IGOR STRAVINSKY Petrushka (1947 version) 34’00 1. The Shrovetide Fair 2. Petrushka’s Room 3. The Moor’s Room 4. The Shrovetide Fair (Towards Evening)
Intermission 20’00 JOHANNES BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15 44’00 1. Maestoso - Poco più moderato 2. Adagio 3. Rondo (Allegro non troppo) Martin Helmchen, piano
Concert duration: 1 hr 55 mins Planning a night out at the SSO? You can view our programme notes on www.sso.org.sg three days before a concert.
Singapore Symphony Orchestra Since its founding in 1979, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) has been Singapore’s flagship orchestra, touching lives through classical music and providing the heartbeat of the cultural scene in the cosmopolitan city-state. In addition to its subscription series concerts, the orchestra is well-loved for its outdoor and community appearances, and its significant role educating the young people of Singapore. The SSO has also earned an international reputation for its orchestral virtuosity, having garnered sterling reviews for its overseas tours and many successful recordings. The SSO makes its performing home at the 1,800-seat state-of-the-art Esplanade Concert Hall. More intimate works and all outreach and community performances take place at the 673-seat Victoria Concert Hall, the home of the SSO. The orchestra performs 100 concerts a year, and its versatile repertoire spans all-time favourites and orchestral masterpieces to exciting cutting-edge premieres. Bridging the musical traditions of East and West, Singaporean and Asian musicians and composers are regularly showcased in the concert season. This has been a core of the SSO's programming philosophy from the very beginning under Choo Hoey, who was Music Director from 1979 to 1996. Since Lan Shui assumed the position of Music Director in 1997, the SSO has performed in Europe, Asia and the United States. In May 2016 the SSO was invited to perform at the Dresden Music Festival and the Prague Spring International Music Festival. This successful five-city tour of Germany and Prague also included the SSO’s return to the Berlin Philharmonie after six years. In 2014 the SSO’s debut at the 120th BBC Proms in London received critical acclaim in the major UK newspapers The Guardian and Telegraph. The SSO has also performed in China on multiple occasions. Notable SSO releases under BIS include a Rachmaninov series, a Debussy disc, Seascapes featuring sea-themed music by Debussy, Frank Bridge, Glazunov and Zhou Long, and the first-ever cycle of Tcherepnin’s piano concertos and symphonies. The SSO has also collaborated with such great artists as Lorin Maazel, Charles Dutoit, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Neeme Järvi, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Lang Lang, Yo-Yo Ma, Leonidas Kavakos and Gil Shaham.
“A fine display of orchestral bravado for the SSO and Shui” The Guardian
OKKO KAMU
conductor
Principal Conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Sibelius Festival since autumn 2011, Okko Kamu began his musical career as leader of the Suhonen Quartet and a violinist in the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. He began his conducting career at the Finnish National Opera, where he had previously served as Leader of the orchestra. In 1969 he started to appear as guest conductor at the Royal Opera in Stockholm, and in the same year won First Prize in the International Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition in Berlin, which launched his international career. Known for his versatility as a musician, Okko Kamu has conducted almost all of the world’s foremost orchestras. Principal Guest Conductor of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra since 1995, he is also Principal Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Finnish National Opera, Stockholm Sinfonietta, Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra and Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra. As an opera conductor he has performed at such venues as the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Covent Garden in London and the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Since 2006 he has been Artistic Director of the “Music! Ruovesi” chamber music festival, appearing as a violinist in various instrumental ensembles. Okko Kamu’s international recording career began when he conducted three Sibelius symphonies for Deutsche Grammophon as a part of a cycle shared with Herbert von Karajan. Since then he has made more than one hundred recordings for such companies as DGG, EMI, BIS, Ondine and Naxos.
His recent recordings include Sibelius’ Tempest Overture and Suites, The Bard and Tapiola with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra (BIS), the Shostakovich Piano Concertos with Andrei Korobeinikov and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra (Mirare), and Richard Strauss songs and opera arias with Soile Isokoski and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra (Ondine). He has also recorded all seven Sibelius symphonies for BIS. Okko Kamu became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1994. In 2011 he was awarded the prize of the Finnish Cultural Foundation and also conferred the honorary title of Professor by the President of Finland.
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Martin Helmchen
piano
With his highly virtuosic yet unpretentious style, pianist Martin Helmchen continues to impress the international music scene including superb debuts with Berlin Philharmonic and Herbert Blomstedt, Vienna Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev, London Philharmonic and Vladimir Jurowski and with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons. In the USA, he has made his concerto debuts with New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall and at the Tanglewood Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, on both occasions under the baton of Christoph von Dohnányi. Martin Helmchen’s quest for exploring all facets of music-making is born in his passion for collaboration, not only with orchestras, but also through chamber music and recitals – largely ignited in early collaborations with the late cellist Boris Pergamenschikow. Since 2010, Martin Helmchen has been an Associate Professor of Chamber Music at the Kronberg Academy. In 2016/17, Martin Helmchen is guest soloist with major European orchestras including Hallé Orchestra Manchester under the baton of Andrew Manze, Philharmonia Orchestra and Herbert Blomstedt, Santa Cecilia Rom and David Afkham, Gewandhaus Orchester with Herbert Blomstedt, Nederlands Filharmonisch Orkest and Marc Albrecht, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich and Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Philippe Herreweghe as well as the Zurich Chamber Orchestra under Sir Roger Norrington. In France he tours with La Chambre Philharmonique under Emmanuel Krivine. A passionate chamber musician, Martin Helmchen also continues a further collaboration with Julia Fischer on a tour of major cities in Asia. He gives solo recitals and duo performances with his wife and cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker in London, Paris, Brussels and in Germany where he is artist in residence at the Schwetzingen SWR Festival in 2017. Martin Helmchen has recorded discs of Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Dvořák concerti under the PentaTone label.
SSO Musicians Lan Shui
Jason Lai
Joshua Tan
Choo Hoey
Okko Kamu
Lim Yau
MUSIC DIRECTOR
ASSOCIATE CONDUCTOR
ASSOCIATE CONDUCTOR
CONDUCTOR EMERITUS
PRINCIPAL GUEST CONDUCTOR
Choral Director
FIRST VIOLIN Igor Yuzefovich° Concertmaster Lynnette Seah Co-concertmaster Kong Zhao Hui* Associate Concertmaster Chan Yoong-Han Fixed Chair Cao Can* Chen Da Wei Duan Yu Ling Foo Say Ming Gu Wen Li Jin Li Cindy Lee Sui Jing Jing Karen Tan William Tan Wei Zhe
SECOND VIOLIN Michael Loh Associate Principal Hai-Won Kwok Fixed Chair Nikolai Koval* Priscilla Neo Chikako Sasaki* Margit Saur Shao Tao Tao Lillian Wang Wu Man Yun* Xu Jue Yi* Ye Lin* Yeo Teow Meng Yin Shu Zhan* Zhang Si Jing*
VIOLA Zhang Manchin Principal Guan Qi Associate Principal Gu Bing Jie* Fixed chair Marietta Ku Born Lau^ Lim Chun^ Liu Hang^ Luo Biao Shui Bing
Tan Wee-Hsin Tong Yi Ping Janice Tsai^ Yang Shi Li
CELLO Ng Pei-Sian Principal Yu Jing Associate Principal Guo Hao Fixed chair Chan Wei Shing Song Woon Teng Wang Yan Wang Zihao* Peter Wilson Wu Dai Dai Zhao Yu Er
DOUBLE BASS Guennadi Mouzyka Principal Yang Zheng Yi Associate Principal Karen Yeo Fixed chair Olga Alexandrova Andreas Dehner^ Ma Li Ming Jacek Mirucki Wang Xu
FLUTE Jin Ta Principal Evgueni Brokmiller Associate Principal Roberto Alvarez Miao Shanshan
PICCOLO Roberto Alvarez Assistant Principal
OBOE Rachel Walker Principal Pan Yun Associate Principal Carolyn Hollier Elaine Yeo
COR ANGLAIS
TROMBONE
Elaine Yeo Associate Principal
Allen Meek Principal Damian Patti Associate Principal Samuel Armstrong
CLARINET Ma Yue Principal Li Xin Associate Principal Liu Yoko Tang Xiao Ping
BASS CLARINET Tang Xiao Ping Assistant Principal
BASSOON Zhang Jin Min Principal Liu Chang Associate Principal Christoph Wichert Zhao Ying Xue
CONTRA BASSOON Zhao Ying Xue Assistant Principal
HORN Han Chang Chou Principal Gao Jian Associate Principal Jamie Hersch Associate Principal Marc-Antoine Robillard Associate Principal Kartik Alan Jairamin Hoang Van Hoc^
TRUMPET Jon Paul Dante Principal David Smith Associate Principal Lertkiat Chongjirajitra^ Sergey Tyuteykin
BASS TROMBONE Wang Wei Assistant Principal
TUBA Hidehiro Fujita Principal
TIMPANI Christian Schiøler Principal Jonathan Fox Associate Principal
PERCUSSION Jonathan Fox Principal Mark Suter Associate Principal Mark De Souza Lim Meng Keh Tan Pei Jie^ Zhu Zheng Yi
HARP Gulnara Mashurova Principal Huang Yu Hsin^
PIANO Shane Thio^ Principal Aya Sakou^
CELESTE Aya Sakou^
* With deep appreciation to the Rin Collection for their generous loan of string instruments. ° Igor Yuzefovich plays an instrument generously loaned by Mr & Mrs G K Goh ^ Musician on temporary contract
Musicians listed alphabetically by family name rotate their seats on a per programme basis.
Musicians’ Chair The Singapore Symphony Orchestra thanks the following organisations for supporting our Musicians’ Chair Programme. The programme supports artistic excellence initiatives in the orchestra’s annual operations. Principal Cello
Ng Pei-Sian
PrincipAL Double Bass
FIXED CHAIR, Cello
Guennadi Mouzyka
Guo Hao
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IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)
Petrushka (1947 version)
34’00
Overnight success came to the twenty-eight year-old Igor Stravinsky with the 1910 premiere of The Firebird in Paris. His father, Fyodor Stravinsky had been a star of the Imperial Opera in St. Petersburg and his mother, Anna Kholodovsky, a pianist. Nonetheless, the family wanted their third son to be a lawyer and so he became a dutiful, albeit indifferent student at the university, while simultaneously studying composition with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the father of one of his classmates. Stravinsky thrived under his light-handed touch and belief that talented students needed little formal instruction, but rather brief grounding in harmony, counterpoint and orchestration with exercises to refine their technique. Sergei Diaghilev first heard Stravinsky’s music in February 1909. Diaghilev was an influential Russian art critic and impresario, whose star had begun to dim in St. Petersburg, but was shining brightly in Paris. There his Ballets Russes was not only revolutionising the world of dance, but also transforming the early twentieth-century cultural landscape. Diaghilev had been searching for someone to compose music for a ballet based on tale of the Firebird, a magical bird with golden feathers and crystal eyes that appears in many Russian folk stories, with which he planned to open his 1910 season. Impressed by what he heard, and not having much luck elsewhere, Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to compose the score. The gamble paid off, as The Firebird was greeted rapturously by the Parisian elite and Stravinsky became the toast of the town. Stravinsky would next turn to the tale of Petrushka, a hand puppet popular during Russian pre-Lenten fairs. Originally intended as a work for piano and orchestra, Diaghilev immediately sensed its theatrical appeal and persuaded Stravinsky to recast it as a ballet. Adapted by Stravinsky, with considerable assistance from the Ballets Russes’ scenery and costume designer Alexandre Benois, the story of Petrushka is a love triangle played out amongst three puppets brought to life by a sinister magician. Choreographer Mikhail Fokine included merrymakers, street dancers, peddlers and a dancing bear in the
crowd that witness Petrushka’s rejection by the beautiful ballerina whom he loves. Petrushka then challenges his rival, a dashing Moor, to a duel, only to be pierced by his scimitar. The crowd is shocked by the violence, and to calm them, the magician shows that Petrushka was but a mere puppet made of straw. Petrushka’s spirit rises from the dead and threatens the magician who flees in terror. The ballet’s premiere on 13 June 1911 with Pierre Monteux conducting was another triumph for the Ballets Russes and Stravinsky. Its success can be attributed to many factors, including the composer’s willingness to adapt his music to his collaborators’ needs and Vaslav Nijinsky’s moving performance as the title character. The music has never lost its appeal, in part due to the actual folk melodies that Stravinsky wove into the score and the rhythms and orchestral colours that blur the distinction between fantasy and reality. This duality in the puppets’ nature is best depicted by the ‘Petrushka chord’ – the C major (all white keys) and F-sharp major (all black keys) triads sounding simultaneously – that is heard whenever he appears. In 1947, Stravinsky revised the score for a smaller ensemble, making changes in the orchestration and simplifying some of its most difficult rhythmic passages. His motivation was due in part to wanting to reap the profit from its popularity, as his works for the Ballets Russes did not receive international copyright protection. In the intervening years, he had also become a bit more conservative. The outcome reflects the middle-aged Stravinsky’s view of his youthful masterpiece, and thus Petrushka found a home in the concert hall for which it was originally destined.
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JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15
44’00
“Do they not understand that producing a melody alone is a long, long away from writing out in long hand an entire symphony?” So wrote David Tang in one of his recent columns for the weekend Financial Times in which he mused upon the relative ranking of genius versus mere exceptional talent. For the record, he placed Johannes Brahms on the genius side of the equation. Tang perfectly summed up Brahms’ conundrum. Robert Schumann had anointed the twenty-year old composer as ‘one of the chosen’ and Beethoven’s heir. Brahms had been taught to revere the past masters, Beethoven above all, even owning a bust of the great composer. The expectations were high, but not crushing. Brahms would meet them, albeit on his terms, proving that he could not only turn out beautiful melodies, but was indeed a genius that could write a symphony. Brahms waited until he was 42 to produce his first symphony. The German conductor Hans von Bülow, who was a champion of Brahms’ music, called it ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’ due to its obvious references to the Ninth Symphony. Bülow would later substitute Brahms’ name for that of Hector Berlioz in ‘The Three Bs’ — the phrase that has come to denote the pinnacle of achievement in classical music, where Brahms ranks alongside Bach and Beethoven. That was all in the future however, for a young composer struggling to find his own voice. Nothing demonstrates the beginning of this long journey like the four years that it took him to compose what would be his first major composition for orchestra, in which living greats played as important a role as the ghosts of the past. In 1853, the fledgling composer met the violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim, who in turn would provide him with an introduction to Robert and Clara Schumann. When Brahms called upon them later that year, Robert was already suffering from the illness that resulted in his death three years later. In early 1854, Brahms began work on a sonata for two pianos. This was a tumultuous time for
all concerned, as Robert had just been institutionalised and his wife forbidden to visit him. Brahms served as their messenger. He would also hear Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in D minor for the first time in March of that year. Brahms’ evolving relationship with Clara was complex, but when he expressed his romantic feelings to her, they were rebuffed. After her husband’s death, she would devote herself to preserving her husband’s legacy, pursuing her career as a pianist, and raising their seven children. She continued however, to have an important place in Brahms’ life, both personally and professionally, as would Joachim. Brahms repeatedly turned to him for advice in orchestration and string writing. Perhaps it was while playing through the sonata with Clara that it became clear to him that two pianos were insufficient to express his musical concept for the work, let alone the emotions he was experiencing. The all-consuming process overwhelmed Brahms. He wrote in exasperation to Joachim that, “I have no judgment about this piece anymore, nor any control over it”. Joachim conducted the first public performance of the Piano Concerto on 22 January 1859 in Hannover with Brahms at the piano. A subsequent performance a few days later in Leipzig was a disaster. Brahms was philosophical about it all, but did admit that “the hissing was really too much”. Four years later, he was again the soloist when it was next performed in Mannheim, with only minor revisions to the score. The performance was a triumph and the Concerto acknowledged from that point forward as a masterpiece.
Programme notes by Rick Perdian
Board Of Directors & Committees
PATRON President Tony Tan Keng Yam
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Mr Goh Yew Lin (Chairman) Ms Yong Ying-I (Deputy Chairman) Mr Ang Chek Meng Mrs Odile Benjamin Mr Chng Hak-Peng Mr Lionel Choi Prof Arnoud De Meyer Mr Heinrich Grafe Mr Kwee Liong Seen Ms Liew Wei Li Ms Lim Mei Prof Lim Seh Chun Mr Andreas Sohmen-Pao Ms Tan Choo Leng Mr Paul Tan Dr Kelly Tang Mr Yee Chen Fah
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