LAN SHUI Music Director
SSO GALA
KAVAKOS PLAYS SHOSTAKOVICH 5 May 2018 Esplanade Concert Hall Performing Home of the SSO
Lan Shui, conductor Leonidas Kavakos, violin
5 May 2018, Sat
SSO GALA • KAVAKOS PLAYS SHOSTAKOVICH Singapore Symphony Orchestra Lan Shui, conductor MODEST MUSSORGSKY
Introduction: “Dawn on the Moscow River” from Khovantchina
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77/99
5’00
39’00
1. Nocturne – Moderato 2. Scherzo – Allegro 3. Passacaglia – Andante – Cadenza 4. Burlesque – Allegro con brio – Presto Leonidas Kavakos, violin
Intermission 20’00
Leonidas Kavakos will sign autographs in the stalls foyer
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13 “Winter Daydreams”
44’00
1. Daydreams on a Winter Journey: Allegro tranquillo 2. Land of Gloom, Land of Mists: Adagio cantabile ma non tanto 3. Scherzo: Allegro scherzando giocoso 4. Finale: Andante lugubre – Allegro maestoso
Concert duration: 2 hrs Go green. Digital programme booklets are available on www.sso.org.sg. Scan the QR code in the foyer to view a copy.
Sing a p ore 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 673seat 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 “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 AN 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.
L eonida s K ava ko s violin
Leonidas Kavakos is recognised across the world as a violinist and artist of rare quality, known at the highest level for his virtuosity, superb musicianship and the integrity of his playing. He works with the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors. In the 2017/18 season Kavakos is Artist-in-Residence at both the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Vienna Musikverein. He tours Europe with the Filharmonica della Scala and Chailly and tours Europe and Asia with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Blomstedt. Elsewhere, he performs widely as soloist including with the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Kavakos also gave the European premiere of Lera Auerbach’s Nyx: Fractured Dreams (Violin Concerto No. 4) with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. In December 2017 Kavakos embarked on a European recital tour with Yuja Wang, and in February 2018 he toured North America performing Brahms and Schubert trios with Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax. He also appears in recital with regular chamber music partner Enrico Pace in Asia and Europe. Latterly, Leonidas Kavakos has built a strong profile as a conductor, and has conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Gürzenich Orchester, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Filarmonica Teatro La Fenice and Budapest Festival orchestras. In the 2017/18 season he will conduct the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Vienna Symphony.
SSO MU SICIANS 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 Zhou Qi^ Principal Michael Loh Associate Principal Hai-Won Kwok Fixed Chair 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 Ma Li Ming^ Jacek Mirucki Wang Xu Zhang Kaixuan#
FLUTE Jin Ta Principal Evgueni Brokmiller Associate Principal Roberto Alvarez Miao Shanshan
TRUMPET Jon Paul Dante Principal David Smith Associate Principal Lau Wen Rong Sergey Tyuteykin
PICCOLO Roberto Alvarez Assistant Principal
TROMBONE Allen Meek Principal Damian Patti Associate Principal Samuel Armstrong
OBOE Rachel Walker Principal Pan Yun Associate Principal Carolyn Hollier Elaine Yeo COR ANGLAIS Elaine Yeo Associate Principal CLARINET Ma Yue Principal Li Xin Associate Principal Liu Yoko Tang Xiao Ping BASS CLARINET Tang Xiao Ping Assistant Principal BASSOON Masayuki Okamoto** Principal Liu Chang Associate Principal Christoph Wichert Zhao Ying Xue
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 Lim Meng Keh Zhu Zheng Yi HARP Gulnara Mashurova Principal CELESTE Shane Thio^
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 Daniel Remme#
* 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 SSO exchange programme with Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra Member of the Shanghai Academy Orchestra ^ Musician on temporary contract Musicians listed alphabetically by family name rotate their seats on a per programme basis.
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igor yuzefovich Concertmaster The GK Goh Chair The GK Goh Chair is endowed by the Family and Friends of Mr Goh Geok Khim
GUO HAO Fixed Chair Cello The Fixed Chair Cello is supported by
CORPORATE SEAT S The Singapore Symphony Orchestra appreciates the support of companies in our Corporate Seats scheme. The scheme supports the Orchestra through regular attendance of subscription concerts. $20,000 and above Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore (Pte) Ltd
Up to $10,000 Hong Leong Foundation Nomura Asset Management Singapore Ltd Prima Limited Santa Lucia Asset Management Stephen Riady Group of Foundations
This list is for donations from 1 Jan 2017 to 1 Jan 2018. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra is a charity and not-for-profit organisation. Find out how you can support us at www.sso.org.sg. Call or email us at 6602 4238 or peggykek@sso.org.sg.
he a r t f e lt T h a nks to Our DONOR S OF THE S S O B e ne f i t Dinne r 2018 Each year, the SSO Ladies’ League raises funds for the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and its affiliated groups through different events. This year, the SSO Benefit: Fiesta Latina! was held on 21 April 2018 and raised over $1 million. These donations are important contributions that enable us to stage gala concerts by international stars. $150,000 and above Christopher & Rosy Ho $100,000 Tote Board $50,000 Aquilus Pte Ltd G K Goh Holdings Kingsmen Exhibits Pte Ltd $30,000 Far East Organization Grace Yeh & Family $20,000 to $25,000 United Overseas Bank Ltd Maisy Koh & Dr Beh Swan Gin Dr Julie Lo
Clarinda Tjia-Dharmadi-Martin & Christopher Martin Kris Foundation Paige Parker & Jim Rogers
Andreas & Doris Sohmen-Pao Dr Thomas & Mrs Mary Zuellig
$10,000 Anonymous At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy Boardroom Limited Cellresearch Corporation Chip Eng Seng Corporation Ltd DBS Limited Frasers Property
Interchem Pte Ltd LGT Bank (Singapore) Ltd One North Capital Pte Ltd Raffles Medical Group SEA Pte Ltd Stephen Riady Group of Foundations Total Trading Asia Pte Ltd Van Cleef & Arpels
Odile Benjamin Lito & Kim Camacho Choo Chiau Beng Amy & Kevin Gould Judy Hunt Liew Wei Li Geoffrey & Ai Ai Wong Yong Ying-I
This list is accurate as of 20 April 2018. We would like to express our sincere appreciation to donors whose names were inadvertently left out at print time.
upcoming concerts
11 MAY 2018
Fri | 7.30pm Esplanade Concert Hall
Subscription Concert
CHRISTIAN BLACKSHAW PLAYS BEETHOVEN Lyricism and Soulfulness BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 BRUCKNER Symphony No. 9 in D minor Claus Peter Flor, conductor Christian Blackshaw, piano
13 MAY 2018
Sun | 6pm Shaw Foundation Symphony Stage, Singapore Botanic Gardens
SSO CLASSICS IN THE PARK • MOTHER’S DAY CONCERT Highlights: TCHAIKOVSKY Polonaise from Eugene Onegin BRAHMS Hungarian Dance No. 1 BARROSO Brasil (Aquarela do Brasil) GARDEL (arr. WILLIAMS) Por una Cabeza GAMBLE, HUFF & GILBERT Me & Mrs. Jones (arr. VRTACNIK) AHMAD JAAFAR / P. RAMLEE Ibu (arr. MOHD RASULL) Joshua Tan, conductor Taufik Batisah, artist Lynnette Seah, violin
Venue Partner Singapore Botanic Gardens
FREE ADMISSION Concert subject to prevailing weather conditions. Concert-goers are advised to take public transport.
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MODEST MUSSORGSKY (1839-1881) Introduction: “Dawn on the Moscow River” from Khovantchina 5’00 Mussorgsky was perhaps the most gifted composer of the Russian Five, the other members being Balakirev, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin. The Five looked to create a distinctively Russian musical idiom, breaking away from German hegemony. Mussorgsky’s musical talent resulted in masterworks such as his Boris Godunov, Pictures at an Exhibition, Night on Bald Mountain and Khovantchina (The Khovansky Affair). It is rather unusual then, that while these four works are frequently performed or staged around the world, only Boris Godunov and Pictures at an Exhibition – in its original solo piano version – are performed in a way Mussorgsky himself would have recognised. Mussorgsky worked as a civil servant by day, while pursuing artistic endeavours in his free time. He was also an alcoholic – which jeopardised his day job with frequent illnesses and absences to recover from hangovers. Despite this, he had an almost unmatched gift for painting the most vivid scenes in his compositions – often with almost reckless musical abandon. He was eventually sacked in 1880, and left many compositions uncompleted when he passed away from alcohol poisoning the following year. Rimsky-Korsakov then decided to edit and orchestrate both operas – Boris Godunov (the current trend has however moved back to performing Mussorgsky’s original, “coarser” version), and Khovantchina. Mussorgsky had left Khovantchina incomplete, and Rimsky-Korsakov had to filter through nine years’ worth of intermittent work to assemble it into something that could be performed. The premiere of the Rimsky-Korsakov edition took place in 1886. Since then, other notable composers such as Ravel and Stravinsky (in collaboration), and Shostakovich have also created their own editions and orchestrations of Khovantchina. Today, both Rimsky-Korsakov and Shostakovich’s editions are the most frequently performed. Mussorgsky wrote the libretto and a piano score for most of the opera. The fouract opera discusses the rebellion of Prince Ivan Khovansky against the regent Sofia Alekseyevna (the first woman to rule Russia), and subsequent palace intrigues and political manoeuvring. Mussorgsky completed the piano score for Dawn over the Moskva (Moscow) River – meant to open the opera – in September 1874. Mussorgsky described the Introduction (or Prelude) as “depicting dawn over the Moscow River, matins at cock crow, the patrol, and the taking down of the chains (on the city gates). It is short but very effective — it begins delicately and soon a beautiful tune emerges. This grows until the oboe has the tune against rising scales in the violins, the curtain rises, and we see not the Moscow River but Red Square. As the music becomes more animated, we see the church domes lit by the rising sun. The bells sound for early mass. The bells die away, and the music dissolves like the mist from the river.”
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77/99 39’00 The Soviet Committee for Artistic Affairs issued a “Resolution on Music” on 10 February 1948, accusing Shostakovich, Prokofiev and several other prominent Russian composers of writing music with “formalistic distortions and anti-democratic tendencies alien to the Soviet people”. The resolution removed several of Shostakovich’s most prominent compositions – including the First Piano Concerto and the Sixth, Eighth and Ninth Symphonies – from the repertory of Soviet artistic institutions. Soviet composers were ordered to “favour vocal music over instrumental; programme music over “absolute”; shun the use of modernistic techniques that shut out nonprofessional listeners; make liberal use of folklore; and actually emulate the styles of the great Russian composers of the nineteenth century.” Richard Taruskin observes, “Never before, not even in Nazi Germany, were composers ever enjoined so literally to isolate themselves from the rest of the musical world and turn back the stylistic clock. But style was not the main issue. The Resolution’s demands, especially for concrete musical “content” embodied in texts and programmes, were at bottom an attempt to render musical compositions more easily censorable.” Shostakovich complied with these demands and stopped writing symphonies until after Stalin’s death in 1953. He wrote music for patriotic films such as The Fall of Berlin and choral works such as Song of the Forests, which was inspired by Stalin’s “Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature”. Shostakovich had however, just before the Resolution in early 1948, completed his First Violin Concerto, then catalogued as Op. 77, for David Oistrakh. He locked it away for years and only took it back out in 1955 – two years after Stalin’s death, and just before Khrushchev initiated the Thaw. The Concerto was premiered seven years after its completion as Op. 99, by Oistrakh with Mravinsky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic on 29 October 1955. Oistrakh remarked that the concerto “does not fall easily into one’s hands”, and that “its absolute symphonic thinking” creates “exceedingly interesting problems for the performer, who plays, as it were, a pithy “Shakespearean role, which demands complete emotional and intellectual involvement and gives ample opportunities not only to demonstrate virtuosity but also to reveal deepest feelings, thoughts and moods". The concerto opens with a slow, brooding Nocturne rising from the lower strings. The violin takes over and extends the searching melody. Sombre-hued instruments darken the shadows, and aside from a passionate outburst, the atmosphere remains bleak. The harp and celesta bring the violin to the movement’s otherworldly close.
A sarcastic circus-like dance begins the Scherzo, and Shostakovich literally joins in as a participant, interjecting with his initials, DSCH, “spelt� out in the music as D/Eflat/C/B. This fingerprint would also be famously imprinted on the Tenth Symphony and Eighth String Quartet. An even more raucous Jewish klezmer-inspired central episode brings us to a more human dance, before the devilish crazed one whirls itself to a virtuosic end. Like Britten and several other contemporaries, Shostakovich used the Baroque Passacaglia (a series of variations over a recurring bass line) in many of his compositions. The bass line is presented with strong, timpani-accented statements in the lower strings, while the horns play a stern countermelody. The theme moves across different combinations of instruments while the violin provides a running commentary, weaving in and out of the sombre and formal dirge. This gives way to one of the longest cadenzas written in the violin concerto repertory. The soloist muses on the concerto via some incredibly taxing passages before accelerating into the Burlesque. The circus of the scherzo is amplified to absurd proportions. The winds and timpani provide an atmosphere of dark humour in which the violinist fiddles away wildly. Even the emotionally sober passacaglia is parodied, with the clattering xylophone acting as the mocking ring leader. The frenzied dance accelerates to its electrifyingly disconcerting denouement.
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PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOV SKY (1840-1893) Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13 “Winter Daydreams” 44’00 Tchaikovsky graduated from the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in St. Petersburg in 1859 and spent three years in the civil service. He then enrolled with the inaugural cohort of students at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1862. Soon after graduating, he was invited to teach harmony at Nikolai Rubinstein’s Russian Musical Society in Moscow in 1866 – which was reorganised to become the Moscow Conservatory later that year. Rubinstein encouraged Tchaikovsky to write a symphony, which he offered to conduct. Tchaikovsky struggled through the compositional process. His brother, Modest, later wrote that “no other work cost him such effort and suffering … Despite painstaking and arduous work, its composition was fraught with difficulty … [his] nerves became more and more frayed… he began to suffer from insomnia, and the sleepless nights paralysed his creative energies. At the end of July all this erupted into a terrible nervous attack, the like of which he never experienced again … dreadful hallucinations, which were so frightening that they resulted in a feeling of complete numbness in all his extremities.” Modest further recounted, “Pyotr Ilyich was unable to finish the symphony in its entirety during the summer. Nevertheless, before returning to Moscow, he decided to show the symphony as it stood to Anton Rubinstein (Nikolai’s brother) and Zaremba, in the hope that it would be performed in one of the Russian Musical Society concerts in Saint Petersburg. But instead he was sorely disappointed; the symphony was judged very harshly and was not approved for performance... The professors’ authority was so great that Pyotr Ilyich bowed down before them and took the symphony to Moscow with the intention of revising it.” Yet from this dark psychological place, Winter Daydreams came to life. After further revisions, Nikolai Rubinstein stayed true to his word and conducted the Scherzo in December 1866, the Adagio and Scherzo in February the following year, and finally the full Symphony in February 1868. It was not performed again for 15 years. Tchaikovsky revised the Symphony in 1874, before the final version – as we know it today – was performed in 1883. Despite the painful gestation, Tchaikovsky wrote years later, “despite all its glaring deficiencies I have a soft spot for it, for it is a sin of my sweet youth.” He later also remarked to his patron Nadezhda von Meck that the Symphony was “in many ways very immature, yet fundamentally it has more substance and is better than many of my other more mature works.” In this Symphony, Tchaikovsky conceptualised what a distinctive Russian Symphony might be, unequivocally succeeding where the Russian Five had met with lukewarm success. The British critic Tom Service wrote, “Tchaikovsky does more than simply pull off a symphonic-stylistic balancing act but manages to find a melodic and structural confidence that’s completely his own, [this] was proof that this 26-year-old symphonic tyro was already on a path to a music that was distinctively his own, yet definitively Russian.”
Tchaikovsky provided the subtitle, Winter Daydreams, and also provided titles for the first two movements. Paul Horlsey suggests that “none of this is to suggest that the symphony is openly programmatic, however, for such titles were common in music of the period. They were most often intended simply as mood descriptions.” A forlorn yet beautiful melody on flute and bassoon sets us on Daydreams on a Winter Journey, while the violins rustle below. There is a remarkable immediacy that sets this symphony apart from Tchaikovsky’s later works. Yet in this movement, which largely conforms to the Germanic structural norm, we hear the distinctive harmonic movements and dancing rhythms, combined with the generous outpouring of melody which would characterise his entire symphonic output. The horns dance in the development section, as Tchaikovsky combines his themes and conjures up a tempestuous storm, before they help the lower strings find their way back home to the opening theme, and the movement ends pensively. Strings introduce the Land of Gloom, Land of Mists, which is, in Tom Service’s fitting words, “really a land of endless melody, of continual and seductive song”. Tchaikovsky introduces his take on the symphonic slow movement – building from a sentimental oboe solo, journeying through a suave response from the violas and violins, and mustering the full orchestra to scale emotional peaks – in this first excursion to Tchaikovsky’s symphony of song. This will continue to blossom in his later symphonies and ballets. The first movement to be completed, the Scherzo recalls Mendelssohn’s whispering and gossamer textures from A Midsummer Night’s Dream seen through Russian lenses, and the Trio reveals a sneak preview of the symphonic Waltz – which Tchaikovsky would later supplant the (German) Scherzo with. The finale opens with a folk-inspired introduction, before the sizzling drama comes to the fore. Melodies journey to far-flung keys and are inevitably transformed by the expedition, via a scintillating fugue and much brass-led bombast. Tchaikovsky garlands the folk tune, The Garden Blooms, with dancing flowers, perhaps to remind everyone that even the darkest winter must eventually yield to spring. Programme notes by Christopher Cheong
RECOMMENDED LISTENING 1) Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 1-3 Valery Gergiev & London Symphony Orchestra (LSO Live, 2012)
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