LAN SHUI Music Director
subscription concert
ALINA IBRAGIMOVA PLAYS BRAHMS 30 March 2018 Esplanade Concert Hall Performing Home of the SSO
Lan Shui, conductor Alina Ibragimova, violin
30 Mar 2018, Fri
ALINA IBRAGIMOVA PLAYS BRAHMS Singapore Symphony Orchestra Lan Shui, conductor ALBAN BERG Three Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6 19’00 1. Präludium (Prelude) 2. Reigen (Round Dance) 3. Marsch (March) JOHANNES BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 38’00 1. Allegro non troppo 2. Adagio 3. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace
Alina Ibragimova, violin
Intermission 20’00
Alina Ibragimova will sign autographs in the stalls foyer.
BÉLA BARTÓK Concerto for Orchestra 36’00 1. Introduzione. Andante non troppo 2. Presentando le coppie. Allegro scherzando 3. Elegia. Andante non troppo 4. Intermezzo Interrotto. Allegretto 5. Finale. Pesante – Presto
Concert duration: 2 hrs 10 mins Go green. Digital programme booklets are available on www.sso.org.sg. Scan the QR code in the foyer to view a copy.
S ing a p or e S y mp hon y Or c he s t r a ‘A fine display of orchestral bravado for the SSO and Shui’ The Guardian
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 alltime 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 “Seascapes” album, two Debussy discs “La Mer” and “Jeux”, 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, Diana Damrau, Lang Lang, Yo-Yo Ma, Janine Jansen, Leonidas Kavakos and Gil Shaham.
L a n SHui conductor
Lan Shui is renowned for his abilities as an orchestral builder and for his passion in commissioning, premiering and recording new works by leading Asian composers. As Music Director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra since 1997, American Record Review noted that Shui has “turned a good regional orchestra into a world-class ensemble that plays its heart out at every concert”. Together they have made several acclaimed tours to Europe, Asia and the United States and appeared for the first time at the BBC Proms in September 2014. Lan Shui held the position of Chief Conductor of the Copenhagen Phil from 2007 to 2015, and from 2016 he became their Conductor Laureate. He recently concluded a four-year period as Artistic Advisor of the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra. As a guest conductor, Shui has worked with many orchestras. In the United States he has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Baltimore and Detroit symphony orchestras. In Europe he has performed with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Gothenburg Symphony, Tampere Philharmonic and Orchestre National de Lille. In Asia he has conducted the Hong Kong, Malaysian and Japan Philharmonic orchestras and maintains a close relationship with the China Philharmonic and Shanghai Symphony. Since 1998 Shui has recorded over 20 CDs for BIS – including a Rachmaninov series, a “Seascapes” disc and the first-ever complete cycle of Tcherepnin’s symphonies with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra – and also music by Arnold and Hindemith with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, which has received two Grammy nominations.
Lan Shui is the recipient of several international awards from the Beijing Arts Festival and the New York Tcherepnin Society, the 37th Besançon Conductors’ Competition in France and Boston University (Distinguished Alumni Award) as well as the Cultural Medallion – Singapore’s highest accolade in the arts. Born in Hangzhou, China, Shui studied composition at the Shanghai Conservatory and graduated from The Beijing Central Conservatory. He continued his graduate studies at Boston University while at the same time working closely with Leonard Bernstein at the Tanglewood Music Festival. He has worked together with David Zinman as Conducting Affiliate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, as Associate Conductor to Neeme Järvi at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and with Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic and Pierre Boulez at The Cleveland Orchestra.
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Al in a Ib r ag imova violin
Performing music from Baroque to new commissions on both modern and period instruments, Alina Ibragimova has established a reputation as one of the most accomplished and intriguing violinists of her generation. Highlights among recent concerto engagements include debuts with the Boston Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Hungarian National Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, returns with the London Symphony, London Philharmonic and Chamber Orchestra of Europe as well as extensive touring in Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Tasmania Symphony Orchestras). Over the next two seasons, concerto engagements will include debuts with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (Ticciati), Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Gardiner), RundfunkSinfonieorchester Berlin (Jurowski), Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, as well as returns with the Montreal Symphony and London Symphony Orchestras, Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Haitink), Swedish Radio Symphony (Harding), Singapore Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Jurowski). Alina will also return to Australia for a major tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Born in Russia in 1985, Alina studied at the Moscow Gnesin School before moving with her family to the UK in 1995 where she studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School and Royal College of Music. Alina has been the recipient of awards including the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award 2010, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award 2008, the Classical BRIT Young Performer of the Year Award 2009 and was a member of the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme 2005-2007. She was made an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2016 New Year Honours List. Alina records for Hyperion Records and performs on a c.1775 Anselmo Bellosio violin kindly provided by Georg von Opel.
RUSSIAN AT HEART
1 April 2018 4pm I Victoria Concert Hall Russian-British violinist Alina Ibragimova joins SSO musicians in an all-Russian programme across three Russian greats in their characteristic musical modes. The sweet yearnings of Tchaikovsky’s lyricism give way to the impish energy of Prokofiev and finally to the dark astringency and twilit enigma of Shostakovich’s Third String Quartet, which he considered one of his best. Tickets: $38, $20 Concessions: $15 PATRON SPONSOR
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Alina Ibragimova, violin Ye Lin, violin Gu Bing Jie, viola Zhang Manchin, viola Ng Pei-Sian, cello Guennadi Mouzyka, double bass Pan Yun, oboe Li Xin, clarinet Gulnara Mashurova, harp
OFFICIAL RADIO STATION
SSO.ORG.SG/CHAMBER
SSO MU S ICIAN S Lan Shui Music Director joshua tan Associate Conductor jason lai Associate Conductor andrew litton Principal Guest Conductor Choo Hoey Conductor Emeritus Eudenice Palaruan Choral Director
FIRST VIOLIN Igor Yuzefovich° Concertmaster, The GK Goh Chair 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 Lim Shue Churn^ Sui Jing Jing Karen Tan William Tan Wei Zhe SECOND VIOLIN Shana Douglas^ Principal Michael Loh Associate Principal Hai-Won Kwok Fixed Chair Kong Xian Long^
Nikolai Koval* Lee Shi Mei^ 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 Luo Biao Julia Park Shui Bing Tan Wee-Hsin Janice Tsai Wang Dandan Yang Shi Li Yeo Jan Wea^ CELLO Ng Pei-Sian Principal Yu Jing Associate Principal Guo Hao Fixed Chair Chan Wei Shing Ding Xiao Feng^ Song Woon Teng Wang Yan Wang Zihao* Wu Dai Dai Zhao Yu Er DOUBLE BASS Guennadi Mouzyka Principal Yang Zheng Yi Associate Principal Karen Yeo Fixed Chair Olga Alexandrova Foo Yin Hong^ 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 Hu Qiuzi^ Elaine Yeo COR ANGLAIS Elaine Yeo Associate Principal CLARINET Ma Yue Principal Li Xin Associate Principal Deng Yung Ping^ Liu Yoko Tang Xiao Ping
Jamie Hersch Associate Principal Marc-Antoine Robillard Associate Principal Hoang Van Hoc^ Kartik Alan Jairamin TRUMPET Jon Paul Dante Principal David Smith Associate Principal Teerapol Kiatthaveephong^ Lau Wen Rong Sergey Tyuteykin TROMBONE Allen Meek Principal Damian Patti Associate Principal Samuel Armstrong BASS TROMBONE Wang Wei Assistant Principal TUBA Hidehiro Fujita Principal TIMPANI Christian Schiøler Principal Jonathan Fox Associate Principal
BASS CLARINET Tang Xiao Ping Assistant Principal BASSOON Ignas Mazvila^ Principal Liu Chang Associate Principal Cheung King Lun^ Christoph Wichert Zhao Ying Xue CONTRA BASSOON Zhao Ying Xue Assistant Principal Cheung King Lun^ HORN Han Chang Chou Principal Gao Jian Associate Principal
PERCUSSION Jonathan Fox Principal Mark Suter Associate Principal Lim Meng Keh Ng Sok Wah^ Tan Pei Jie^ Wang Shan^ Yap Siu Yan^ Zhu Zheng Yi HARP Gulnara Mashurova Principal Charmaine Teo^ CELESTE Shane Thio^
*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.
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mu s ic i a n c h a ir s
Igor Yuzefovich Concertmaster The GK Goh Chair The GK Goh Chair is endowed by the Family and Friends of Mr Goh Geok Khim
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A L BAN BERG (18 8 5 -193 5) Three Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6
19’00
The Three Pieces for Orchestra was dedicated by Alban Berg to his “teacher and friend Arnold Schoenberg, in immeasurable gratitude and love”. A present for his 40th birthday, this work was the result of a stern but open discussion with Schoenberg, on Berg’s progress as a composer and selfreflection thereafter. Berg wrote to Schoenberg on 14 June 1913, “you will, of course, understand, dear Mr Schoenberg, that among the most wonderful memories of unclouded joy, there also obtrudes the memory of that last afternoon, with its depressing home-truths. However, I must thank you as much for your reproof, as for everything else you have given me, well knowing that it was for my own good … I hope to show you soon by deeds what I am scarcely able to express now in words. As soon as I am out in the country, I want to begin that suite. Perhaps someday I shall be able to compose something joyful…” Schoenberg had chastised Berg about failing to compose something which involved large-scale symphonic development – Berg had written smaller pieces such as the Altenberg Songs and Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 6. We can now see from the Three Pieces, Wozzeck, Lulu, and the Violin Concerto, that Schoenberg was right about his pupil – larger forms matched Berg’s genius. Within a few weeks of that censuring encounter, Berg started writing the Three Pieces. While the title suggests inspiration from Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra, musically it is the ghost of Gustav Mahler – who had died in 1911 – that looms over this work. Of all the composers who venerated Mahler, it was Berg who came closest to evoking the vast palate of tone colours, the melding of vernacular forms such as the waltz and march – both of which feature in the Three Pieces – and the sense of tragedy. Berg suggested that the Three Pieces might be thought of as a threemovement symphony, with the Präludium the first movement, Reigen the scherzo and slow movement, and Marsch the finale.
Like Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, the Prelude is written in arch form (A-B-A2), and begins with eight percussion instruments creating a murky atmosphere. A rhythm, which features in all Three Pieces, is introduced by the trombone and doubled by the tam-tam, before the nightmarish ghost of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony wafts in – the opening theme of its first movement fragmented and transformed. Sections of this melody undergo a brief but intense development, before the movement fades back into the fog from which it began. The Round Dance evokes the waltzes and ländlers of Mahler’s symphonies, but also foreshadows Berg’s magnum opus, Wozzeck, with its jumping melodies and pounding accompaniment. Evoking Mahler’s great symphonic marches, Berg’s shuddering March builds to a series of cataclysmic climaxes – the most arresting is where the whole orchestra suddenly vanishes, and the shattering timpani hammer out in syncopation. The brasses are released in a dramatic fanfare – previously heard in fragmented form, now played in full. A long crescendo ensues and a great hammer blow definitively ends the piece.
J OHANNE S BRAHM S (18 3 3 -18 97 ) Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 38’00 In the summer of 1878, a year after completing his Second Symphony, Johannes Brahms returned to the lakeside town of Pörtschach in southern Austria to compose his only Violin Concerto. Coincidentally, 50 years later, Alban Berg would write his own Violin Concerto on those same shores. A pianist himself, Brahms wrote to his good friend and violin virtuoso, Joseph Joachim, for advice and assistance in technical matters. Joachim studied the solo part in great detail and provided many suggestions on what he felt should be changed. Interestingly, Brahms seems to have not taken many of Joachim’s suggestions into account – except for fingerings and bowings – when finalising his concerto. While composing, Brahms had to change his original plan for the concerto, writing to Joachim, “the middle movements have fallen out; naturally they were the best! I have replaced them with a poor adagio.” The planned scherzo took root in Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto a few years later. Joachim received the finalised solo part in mid-December 1878, and performed the Concerto’s premiere just two weeks later, on New Year’s Day 1879, at a Gewandhaus concert in Leipzig with Brahms conducting. It was received moderately well, but the Viennese premiere two weeks later received a warmer reception – with Brahms recalling that the orchestral players “wanted rather to hear [Joachim] than play their own notes. At their desks they were always looking sideways – quite fatal, though understandable.” After these performances, Joachim managed to successfully persuade Brahms to make some further changes to the score before it was published – and this is the version we know today. Originally conceived in four movements, the Violin Concerto is a work best viewed on a grand, symphonic scale. The first movement takes its time to introduce its two main themes played by the orchestra, before the soloist enters with dramatic flourish. A quick-fire riposte between the solo violin and orchestra gives way to the violinist taking the opening theme from its initial cello-led depths to soaring heights in the stratosphere. Brahms takes care to contrast the dramatic and fiery moments with the illusion of the violinist
bringing time to a standstill on a beautiful high note, and sighing reflections on the yearning second theme. Near the end of the movement, Brahms allows the soloist to improvise a cadenza – Joachim’s is the most well-known and frequently performed, but there is a wealth of options available. Violinist Pablo de Sarasate once complained that the Adagio of the second movement required the violinist to “listen, violin in hand to how the oboe plays the only melody in the whole piece”. While hardly the ‘only melody’ in the concerto, it is one of Brahms’ finest melodies – a long-breathed tranquil one. The soloist soon enters and rhapsodises on this melody, even finding time to ruminate in an uneasy central section, before the great oboe melody returns to bring the movement to a restful conclusion. The finale features a springy Hungarian-styled dance in an unusually overt display of musical flair. The gypsy spirit pays homage to Joachim’s heritage and the corresponding movement of Bruch’s Violin Concerto – which Joachim had previously introduced to Brahms. Witty interjections and jolly tunes permeate the movement, and trumpets and timpani bring the movement to a strong climax with the final dance. The music abruptly unwinds before coming back together, ending with a flourish.
B É L A BARTÓK (18 81-194 5) Concerto for Orchestra
36’00
Heavily influenced by Richard Strauss and Franz Liszt in his youth, Béla Bartók also, with fellow Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, ventured into the Hungarian countryside to collect and document rural folk music. His pioneering work in ethnomusicology, coupled with the Romanticism of his youth, resulted in his unique compositional style – succinctly presented in the Concerto for Orchestra. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Bartók fled to the United States in 1940, but unfortunately contracted leukaemia soon after. As his health worsened, the composer-conductor Serge Koussevitzky, who was the Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, commissioned Bartók for a new orchestra work in the summer of 1943 at the prompting of Bartók’s friends, conductor Fritz Reiner and violinist Joseph Szigeti. A sudden surge of creative energy ensued (Bartók had not composed anything substantial in the previous two years), and Bartók wrote the Concerto for Orchestra in just two months. It was premiered in December 1944 by Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and was an unqualified success. Bartók’s wife recounted, “we went [to Boston] for the rehearsals and performances — after having obtained the grudgingly granted permission of my doctor for this trip.... The performance was excellent. Koussevitzky says it is the ‘best orchestra piece of the last 25 years’ (including the works of his idol, Shostakovich!).” The intervening years have since shown the Concerto for Orchestra to not only be one of the best orchestral works of those 25 years, but also one of the greatest orchestral pieces written in the 20th century. Bartók never wrote a symphony, though this Concerto was the closest he ever came to writing one, in scope, structure and ambition. The composer wrote, “the general mood of the work represents, apart from the jesting second movement, a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one... The title of this symphony-like orchestral work is explained by its tendency to treat the single orchestral instruments in a concertant or soloistic manner. The ‘virtuoso’ treatment appears, for instance, in the fugato sections of the development of the first movement (brass instruments), or in the perpetuum mobile-like passage of the principal theme in the last movement (strings),
and especially in the second movement, in which pairs of instruments consecutively appear with brilliant passages.” A slow Introduction begins ominously in the depths of the orchestra, slowly brightening as the pitch moves upwards, leading to a vigorously driving Allegro vivace. Strings lead the first theme, which gives way to an oboe and harp-led lyrical interlude. Fugal passages start to emerge, setting up a brilliant brass fugue which dominates the middle of the movement. The lyrical interlude re-emerges, but this time with a slightly harder edge, as the harpist is directed to scrape the harp’s strings with a wooden or metal stick. Themes reappear, truncated, before the fugue theme closes the movement with a flash of exhilaration. A side-drum leads the Presentando le coppie (Presentation of Couples). Early recordings and scores erroneously titled this movement Giuoco delle coppie (Game of the Couples), but conductor Sir Georg Solti discovered in 1980 that the printed score not only had the wrong title engraved, but a metronome marking that was slower than what Bartók wrote – by 20 beats per minute! Five pairs of instruments come in one after another, playing in parallel intervals: bassoons in sixths, oboes in thirds, clarinets in sevenths, flutes in fifths, and trumpets in seconds. A brass chorale provides a short interlude, before each instrumental theme is re-presented, with other instruments running circles around the original pair. At the heart of the Concerto is the Elegia. Themes from the first movement are recalled and transformed into a dark, atmospheric Nachtmusik (Night music). Bartók evokes the sounds of nocturnal elements, and eerie instrumental effects recall the “Lake of Tears” from Bartók’s opera, Bluebeard’s Castle. An anguished cry interrupts this murky soundscape, as another theme from the first movement is agonisingly transfigured, and a piccolo-led bird song darkens the soundscape once again. In a story told to his pupil and piano virtuoso György Sándor, Bartók imagined “a young man serenading his sweetheart only to be brutally interrupted by a drunken mob” in the Intermezzo Interrotto (Interrupted Intermezzo). The serenade, or intermezzo, which comes after a brief oboeled introduction, is reminiscent of a song from the Hungarian composer Zsigmund Vincze’s popular operetta, A hamburgi menyasszony (The Bride from Hamburg). The violas intone, “Hungary, you are beautiful…” over the timpani’s own concerto with 12 different pitches in just nine short bars. The drunken mob, in a parody of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, soon
interrupts. Bartók confided in fellow Hungarian conductor Antal Dorati, who related that Bartók admitted to “caricaturing a tune from Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, the ‘Leningrad’, which was then enjoying great popularity in America, and in Bartók’s view, more than it merited. ‘So, I gave vent to my anger’, he said.” Far away from the raging Second World War in Europe, Bartók would not have known or felt that that theme represented the brutal and seemingly unstoppable Nazi war machine, blitzing into Russia and setting siege to major cities for years. Nevertheless, Bartók blows several raspberries at this inane tune, and the serenade blossoms again. A horn call resounds and the strings scurry in perpetual motion over strumming folk dance-like rhythms which frequently inform Bartók’s compositions. A large-scale fugue unfolds across the middle section, before a culminating recapitulation brings the different musical threads together and the brass drive us towards a stunningly triumphant finale.
Programme notes by Christopher Cheong
RECOMMENDED LISTENING 1) Wigmore Hall Live – Beethoven: Alina Ibragimova & Cédric Tiberghien Alina Ibragimova & Cédric Tiberghien (Wigmore Hall Live, 2010)
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