14 Oct 2022, Fri
Esplanade Concert Hall
21 & 22 Oct 2022, Fri & Sat Victoria Concert Hall
CAPRICCIO
28 Oct 2022, Fri Esplanade Concert Hall
For the enjoyment of all patrons during the concert:
• Please switch off or silence all electronic devices.
• Please minimise noises during performance.
unavoidable, wait for a loud section in the music.
• No photography, video or audio recording is allowed when artists are performing.
• Non-flash photography is allowed only during bows and applause when no performance is taking place.
Go green. Digital programme books are available on www.sso.org.sg.
Photographs and videos will be taken at these events, in which you may appear. These may be published on the SSO’s publicity channels and materials. By attending the event, you consent to the use of these photographs and videos for the foregoing purposes.
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. In 2021, the SSO clinched third place in the prestigious Orchestra of the Year Award by Gramophone.
In July 2022, the SSO appointed renowned Austrian conductor Hans Graf as its Music Director, the third in the orchestra’s history after Lan Shui (1997–2019) and Choo Hoey (1979–1996). Prior to this, Hans Graf served as Chief Conductor from 2020, leading the SSO in keeping music alive during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The SSO makes its performing home at the 1,800-seat state-of-the-art Esplanade Concert Hall. More intimate works, as well as outreach and community performances
take place at the 673-seat Victoria Concert Hall, the Home of the SSO. The orchestra performs over 60 concerts a year, and its versatile repertoire spans all-time favourites and orchestral masterpieces to exciting cutting-edge premieres. The SSO launched its digital concert hall, SSOLOUNGE, in 2021. Bridging the musical traditions of East and West, Singaporean and Asian musicians and composers are regularly showcased in the concert season.
Beyond Singapore, 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 second performance at the Berlin Philharmonie. In 2014 the SSO’s debut at the 120th BBC Proms in London received critical acclaim in the major UK newspapers The Guardian and The Telegraph. The SSO has also performed in China on multiple occasions.
The SSO has released more than 50 recordings, with over 30 on the BIS label. The most recent critically acclaimed albums include a Rachmaninoff box set (2021), Richard Strauss’ “Rosenkavalier and Other Works” (2020), and three Debussy discs “La Mer”, “Jeux” and “Nocturnes”. A Four Seasons album and a complete Mozart Violin Concerto cycle with Chloe Chua and Hans Graf will be released in the near future.
The SSO has also collaborated with such great artists as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Joe Hisaishi, Neeme Järvi, Okko Kamu, Hannu Lintu, Andrew Litton, Lorin Maazel, Martha Argerich, Ray Chen, Diana Damrau, Stephen Hough, Janine Jansen, Leonidas Kavakos,
Lang Lang, Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham and Krystian Zimerman.
The SSO is part of the Singapore Symphony Group, which also manages the Singapore Symphony Choruses, the Singapore National Youth Orchestra, and the VCHpresents chamber music series, the Singapore International Piano Festival and the biennial National Piano & Violin Competition.
The mission of the Group is to create memorable shared experiences with music. Through the SSO and its affiliated performing groups, we spread the love for music, nurture talent and enrich our diverse communities.
HANS GRAF Music DirectorJukka-Pekka Saraste has established himself as one of the outstanding conductors of his generation, demonstrating remarkable musical depth and integrity. Born in Heinola, Finland, he began his career as a violinist before training as a conductor with Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
In April 2022, Jukka-Pekka Saraste was named as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. He will begin his tenure in summer 2023. From 2010 to 2019, he served as Chief Conductor of the WDR
Symphony Orchestra in Cologne. During his term, the orchestra built a reputation both at home and abroad, touring Austria, Spain, the Baltics, and Asia. The symphonic cycles of Sibelius, Brahms and Beethoven were exceptionally well-received. Previously, from 2006 to 2013, Jukka-Pekka Saraste was Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. He was subsequently appointed Conductor Laureate, the very first such title bestowed by the orchestra. He founded the Finnish Chamber Orchestra, where he remains the Artistic Advisor, and is also a founding member of the LEAD! Foundation, a mentorship programme for young conductors and soloists.
In recent years, Jukka-Pekka Saraste has developed a strong profile in opera and, following concert performances of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, Schönberg’s Erwartung and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, had great success at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna with a new scenic production of Mendelssohn’s Elijah, directed by Calixto Bieito, and Korngold’s Die tote Stadt at the Finnish National Opera.
Jukka-Pekka Saraste’s extensive discography includes the complete symphonies of Sibelius and Nielsen with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and several well-received recordings with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra of works by Bartók, Dutilleux, Mussorgsky and Prokofiev for Warner Finlandia.
German dramatic soprano Evelina Dobračeva began her musical career studying accordion, conducting and teaching at the College of Music in Syzran, Russia. She graduated with a diploma before relocating to Germany, where she began singing under the tuition of Norma Sharp, Snezana Brzakovic and Julia Varady at the Hanns Eisler Music College Berlin.
Operatic roles include Micaëla (Carmen), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) and Violetta (La Traviata) with Cologne Opera and the Deutsche Staatsoper on tour in Japan, Desdemona (Otello) with Centro Cultural de Belém, Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte) at the Verbier Festival and Toulon Opera, Khovanshchina with the Bayerische Staatsoper, Tatiana (Eugene Onegin) at the Theater St Gallen, Lisa (Queen of Spades) at the Bolshoi Theatre, Wozzeck with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Tosca at the Cincinnati Opera and Tulsa Opera and Semyon Kotko at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam conducted by Vladimir Jurovsky.
In concert she has sung Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 and Britten’s War Requiem with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14 with the City of London Sinfonia, Verdi’s Requiem with the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Fabio Luisi, Britten’s War Requiem with the BBC Philharmonic,
Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Odense Symphony Orchestra, Strauss’s Four Last Songs with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and recently the Glagolitic mass on tour with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Semion Bychkov.
An established recording artist, Evelina features on Dargomizhsky’s Rusalka recorded with the West Deutsche Rundfunk Orchester and Michail Jurowski and Britten’s War Requiem recorded with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Jaap van Zweden. Recently Evelina is featured on the world premiere recording of Rubenstein’s Moses under Michail Jurowski.
With the distinguished Austrian conductor Hans Graf, "a brave new world of musicmaking under inspired direction" (The Straits Times) began at the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, where he was appointed Chief Conductor from the 2020/21 season, and Music Director from the 2022/23 season.
Graf was formerly Music Director of the Houston Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Basque National Orchestra and the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. He is a frequent guest with major orchestras
around the world including the orchestras of Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Vienna, Leipzig Gewandhaus, DSO Berlin, Dresden, Royal Concertgebouw, Oslo, Hallé, London, Royal Philharmonic, the Bavarian, Danish and Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestras, Budapest Festival, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Russian National, and the orchestras of Melbourne, Sydney, Seoul, Hong Kong and Malaysian Philharmonic. Graf has led operas in the opera houses of the Vienna State Opera, Munich, Berlin, Paris, Strasbourg, Rome and Zurich. In 2014 he was awarded the Österreichischer Musiktheaterpreis for Strauss’s Die Feuersnot at the famed Vienna Volksoper, where he returned in 2021 to lead Rosenkavalier.
Hans Graf's extensive discography includes all the symphonies of Mozart and Schubert, the complete orchestral works of Dutilleux, and the world-premiere recording of Zemlinsky’s Es war einmal. Graf’s recording of Berg’s Wozzeck with the Houston Symphony won the GRAMMY and ECHO Klassik awards for best opera recording.
Born near Linz in 1949, Graf is Professor Emeritus for Orchestral Conducting at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg. For his services to music, he was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur by the French government, and the Grand Decoration of Honour of the Republic of Austria.
James Ehnes has established himself as one of the most sought-after violinists on the international stage. Gifted with a rare combination of stunning virtuosity, serene lyricism and an unfaltering musicality, Ehnes is a favourite guest of many of the world’s most respected conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Marin Alsop, Andrew Davis, Stéphane Denève, Mark Elder, Iván Fischer, Edward Gardner, Paavo Järvi, Juanjo Mena, Gianandrea Noseda, David Robertson and Donald Runnicles. Ehnes’s list of orchestras he has worked with include the Boston, Chicago, London, NHK and Vienna Symphony Orchestras, the Los Angeles, New York, Munich and Czech Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Philharmonia and DSO Berlin Orchestras.
In 2021, Ehnes was announced as the recipient of the coveted Artist of the Year title in the 2021 Gramophone Awards, which celebrated his recent contributions to the recording industry. This includes the launch of a new online recital series entitled ‘Recitals from Home’, which was released in June 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Recent orchestral highlights include the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall with Gianandrea Noseda, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig with Alexander Shelley, San Francisco Symphony with Marek Janowski, Frankfurt Radio
Symphony with Andrés Orozco-Estrada, London Symphony with Daniel Harding, and Munich Philharmonic with Jaap van Zweden. In the 21/22 season, Ehnes was named the Artist-in-Residence with the National Arts Centre of Canada.
As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with leading artists such as Leif Ove Andsnes, Renaud Capuçon, Louis Lortie, Nikolai Lugansky, Yo-Yo Ma, Antoine Tamestit, Jan Vogler, Inon Barnatan and Yuja Wang. In 2010, he established the Ehnes Quartet. He is also the Artistic Director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society.
Ehnes plays the “Marsick” Stradivarius of 1715.
Eudenice Palaruan studied at U.P. College of Music, majoring in composition and choral conducting. After finishing his Bachelor's Degree, he took another four-year study at the Berliner Kirchenmusikschule, Germany, majoring in choral conducting.
He was the resident composer/arranger and assistant choirmaster of the Philippine Madrigal Singers. He performed with the World Youth Choir and the Berlin Monteverdichor. In addition, he was the principal conductor of the San Miguel Master Chorale. For the past years, he
has been the resident conductor of the International Bamboo Organ Festival. With his active involvement in the choralization of Philippine and other Asian indigenous music, he premiered a significant volume of new Asian choral works. In addition, he was often invited to give lectures on non-Western vocal aesthetics.
Eudenice taught composition and choral conducting in several institutions such as the University of the Philippines College of Music, the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music, and St. Paul University College of Music and the Performing Arts. Currently, he teaches at the Singapore Bible College School of Church Music and directs the SBC Canticorum.
During the extended lockdown, Eudenice continued skill development programmes to maintain the vocal and artistic upkeep of the Singapore Symphony Chorus. Through hybrid online-physical rehearsals, he gave vocal training to its members, rehearsing chamber ensembles and developing repertoire breadth for equal voices. In addition, as a composer and arranger, he wrote new choral works for The SSC Affair, an outreach programme of the Singapore Symphony Chorus that trains choral music enthusiasts around Singapore.
Armed with a passion to inspire choral excellence in children and youth, Wong Lai Foon has been a driving force behind the development and growth of the Singapore Symphony Children’s and Youth Choirs. A founding conductor of the Children’s Choir (SSCC) at its inception in 2006, Wong was appointed Choirmaster in 2015, and led in the formation of the Youth Choir (SSYC) in 2016.
She has prepared both ensembles in a wide range of performances that have drawn praise for the choirs’ beautiful tone and polished delivery. Highlights of past collaborations with the SSO include Britten’s War Requiem, Bizet’s Carmen, Puccini’s La bohème and Mahler’s Second and Third symphonies. In addition, the SSCC has shared the stage with the celebrated ensemble, The King’s Singers, the Maîtrise de Radio France at the Philharmonie de Paris, and has performed for local and world heads of states at state functions. The SSYC is featured on the SSO’s CD, Russian Spectacular.
Wong has commissioned and premiered works by local composers in an effort to grow the body of local compositions for treble choirs. Her efforts to educate and
inspire extend into the community through workshops, talks, as well as adjudicator, chorus-master and guest-conductor roles. Some ensembles that she has worked with include The Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Singapore Symphony Chorus, Singapore Lyric Opera, Hallelujah Singers, and Methodist Festival Choir. She holds a master’s degree in choral conducting from Westminster Choir College, USA.
ROMANTIC
Singing is a joyful experience, and singing together is a celebration. The Singapore Symphony Chorus offers talented and passionate choristers a platform to come together to perform great symphonic works at the highest standards. In coming together in their shared love for music, the Chorus is a warm community of like-minded choristers, that represents the pinnacle of choral excellence in Singapore.
Since its first performance on 13 June 1980, the Chorus has established itself as one of the finest symphony choruses in the region. The Chorus has performed with renowned conductors including Okko Kamu, Lan Shui, Lim Yau, Masaaki Suzuki and Sofi Jeannin – amassing a wide repertoire such as Rachmaninov’s The Bells, Arvo Pärt’s Te Deum, Britten’s War Requiem, and Bach’s St John Passion, amongst others.
Eudenice Palaruan Choral Director Shane Thio rehearsal pianist
Comprised of Singapore’s finest young choristers aged 17 to 28, the Singapore Symphony Youth Choir is an energetic ensemble inaugurated in 2016 to complement the SSO with a chorus of vibrant voices.
Exploring the best of different musical worlds and styles, the Youth Choir has performed Scriabin’s Prometheus, Puccini’s La bohème, as well as recorded Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Within the last seasons, the Youth Choir has had opportunities to perform with world renowned conductors and tour with the SSC and SSO, to present at the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas in Kuala Lumpur. In 2021, at the height of the pandemic, the Youth Choir continually challenged and overcame performing limitations to produce a digital production of its own, “Where I Belong”.
Wong Lai Foon Choirmaster Evelyn Handrisanto rehearsal pianistLaurence Biard
Janice Chee
Kaitlyn Kim Koriyama Fumiko Laura Lee
Ivanna Pasaribu Sarah Santhana Ellissa Sayampanathan* Sisi Stobie Tan Carine Gladys Torrado Jasmine Towndrow
Chan Li Ting Chng Xin Bei Friederike Herrmann Truly Hutapea Lo Siu Ming Daisy Natalia Elsie Tan Amelia Yeo
Jean-Michel Bardin Cris Bautro
Chng Chin Han Chong Wei Sheng Jeroven Marquez Ronald Ooi Roldan Ramonito Ian Tan Benjamin Wong
Ang Jian Zhong Leonard Buescher Vincent Chiu Winsen Citra John Goh Andy Jatmiko Joseph Kennedy Paul Kitamura Jon Loh Loy Sheng Rui Zhang Xidong
N u r t u r e y o u r b r i l l i a n c e , b e i n s p i r e d b y p a s s i o n a n d c e l e b r a t e t h e b e s t o f c h o r a l e x c e l l e n c e
As a broad-based grantmaking organisation, Tote Board works closely with stakeholders and partners to support broad and diverse worthy projects in the sectors of Arts & Culture, Community Development, Education, Health, Social Service and Sports. Through these projects, Tote Board helps to uplift the community by giving hope to vulnerable groups and improving the lives of all in Singapore.
’s goal is to help build a flourishing society. We want to inspire positive change and contribute towards building an inclusive, resilient and vibrant community, while fostering a caring and compassionate nation.
Acclaimed for his highly sensitive touch and technical brilliance, Alexei Volodin is in demand by orchestras at the highest level. He possesses an extraordinarily diverse repertoire from Beethoven and Brahms through Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Scriabin, to Shchedrin and Medtner.
Highlights of the 2022/23 season include returns to Philharmonia Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, and Euskadiko Orkestra, and first appearances with Kyoto Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal. Volodin will join Orchestre de chambre fribourgeois at Besançon International Music Festival and tour with Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen throughout Belgium and the Netherlands with Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1. He returns to SWR Symphonieorchester in a chamber concert of Franck and Schoenberg at the Pentecost Festival Baden-Baden and joins forces with Igor Levit for duo performances at Wigmore Hall and Lucerne Piano Festival.
An active chamber musician, he has a long-standing collaboration with many artists including Sol Gabetta. Previous chamber partners include Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, and Mischa Maisky, as well as the Borodin Quartet, Modigliani Quartet, Cuarteto Casals and Cremona Quartet.
Volodin’s latest album with the Mariinsky label was Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 4, conducted by Gergiev. Recording for Challenge Classics, Volodin’s disc of solo Rachmaninoff works was released in 2013. He also recorded a solo album of Schumann, Ravel and Scriabin, and his earlier Chopin disc won a Choc de Classica and was awarded five stars by Diapason.
A regular artist at festivals, Volodin has performed at Kaposvár International Chamber Music Festival, Festival Les nuits du Château de la Moutte, Variations Musicales de Tannay, Bad Kissingen Sommer Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron, among many others. Alexei Volodin is an exclusive Steinway artist.
© MARCO BORGGREVE
LAN SHUI
Conductor Laureate
Choral Director
Choirmaster
(Position vacant) Concertmaster, GK Goh Chair
Kong Zhao Hui1 Associate Concertmaster Chan Yoong-Han2 Fixed Chair
Cao Can* Chen Da Wei Duan Yu Ling Foo Say Ming Jin Li
Kong Xianlong Cindy Lee
Karen Tan William Tan Wei Zhe Ye Lin* Zhang Si Jing*
Tseng Chieh-An Principal Michael Loh Associate Principal Nikolai Koval* Sayuri Kuru Hai-Won Kwok Chikako Sasaki* Margit Saur Shao Tao Tao Wu Man Yun* Xu Jueyi* Yeo Teow Meng
Yin Shu Zhan* Zhao Tian*
VIOLA
Manchin Zhang Principal Guan Qi Associate Principal Gu Bing Jie* Fixed Chair
Joyce Huang Marietta Ku Luo Biao Julia Park Shui Bing Janice Tsai Dandan Wang Yang Shi Li
CELLO
Ng Pei-Sian Principal, The HEAD Foundation Chair
Yu Jing Associate Principal Guo Hao Fixed Chair
Chan Wei Shing Jamshid Saydikarimov Song Woon Teng Wang Yan Wu Dai Dai Zhao Yu Er
Yang Zheng Yi Associate Principal Karen Yeo Fixed Chair
Olga Alexandrova Jacek Mirucki Guennadi Mouzyka Wang Xu
Jin Ta Principal, Stephen Riady Chair
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
Elaine Yeo Associate Principal
Ma Yue Principal Li Xin Associate Principal Liu Yoko Tang Xiao Ping
BASS CLARINET
Tang Xiao Ping Assistant Principal
BASSOON
Liu Chang Associate Principal Christoph Wichert Zhao Ying Xue
CONTRABASSOON
Zhao Ying Xue Assistant Principal
Gao Jian Associate Principal
Jamie Hersch Associate Principal
Marc-Antoine Robillard Associate Principal Hoang Van Hoc
TRUMPET
Jon Paul Dante Principal David Smith Associate Principal Lau Wen Rong
TROMBONE
Allen Meek Principal Damian Patti Associate Principal Samuel Armstrong BASS TROMBONE Wang Wei Assistant Principal
TUBA Tomoki Natsume Principal
TIMPANI
Christian Schiøler Principal
PERCUSSION
Jonathan Fox Principal Mark Suter Associate Principal Mario Choo Lim Meng Keh HARP Gulnara Mashurova Principal
With deep appreciation to the Rin Collection for their generous loan of string instruments. Kong Zhao Hui performs on a J.B. Guadagnini of Milan, c. 1750, donated by the National Arts Council, Singapore, with the support of Far East Organization and Lee Foundation.
Chan Yoong-Han performs on a David Tecchler, Fecit Roma An. D. 1700, courtesy of Mr G K Goh. Musicians listed alphabetically by family name rotate their seats on a per programme basis.
FIRST VIOLIN
Vesa-Matti Leppanen Guest Concertmaster Lim Shue Churn
SECOND VIOLIN Wilford Goh Martin Peh Yew Shan VIOLA Erlene Koh Yeo Jan Wea
CELLO Wang Zihao
DOUBLE BASS Furusawa Naohisa Ma Li Ming
BASSOON Alexandar Lenkov Guest Principal
HORN Bryan Chong Lewis Lim Alexander Oon
TRUMPET Abner Wong
TROMBONE Li Guanlin
CELESTE Nicholas Loh
FIRST VIOLIN
Vesa-Matti Leppanen Guest Concertmaster
BASSOON Marc Engelhardt Guest Principal
OBOE
Peter Facer Guest Principal
BASSOON
Marc Engelhardt Guest Principal
HORN Bryan Chong
BASS TROMBONE Jasper Tan
PIANO Nicholas Loh
TRUMPET Abner Wong
TUBA Brett Stemple Guest Principal
in the
Concert Duration: approximately 1 hr
mins intermission)
mins (with
It is our pleasure to welcome you to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s Gala Concert, Strauss Four Last Songs and Sibelius Symphony 5.
At The Fullerton Hotels and Resorts, we are dedicated to showcasing the arts and culture to the community. In Singapore, we actively collaborate with local and international talents to infuse art into the cityscape throughout The Fullerton Heritage precinct, as well as to host art exhibitions and cultural performances at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore in support of meaningful causes.
In the same way, we are deeply honoured to support the Singapore Symphony Orchestra on this stunning orchestral display, featuring the works of world-renowned musicians, including veteran Finnish conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste and distinguished soprano Evelina Dobračeva. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra has played a significant role in building Singapore’s cultural scene over the years, and we are grateful for the opportunity to partner them in their efforts.
We are delighted to share the beauty of classical music with you tonight, and we hope you will enjoy the performance.
Gino Tan
The titular character of Lohengrin is a knight of the Holy Grail, who appears from afar in a magical swan boat and rescues and marries a damsel in distress on the condition that she never asks his origins or identity.
The prelude to Act I musically depicts the descent of the Holy Grail to earth, in the care of an angel. Beginning in stasis, Wagner creates a shimmering effect in the opening with a quartet of solo violins playing harmonics and soaring over the rest of the strings. The orchestra enters, carefully layered in an ever-developing texture, until the Holy Grail reaches the earth at the climax where the brasses enter and we hear a cymbal crash. The quartet of violins make an appearance again at the end of the prelude and it ends off the way it began, in a shimmering hush.
An ardent fan of Wagner, King Ludwig II of Bavaria was said to have loved the opera so much that he frequently paraded a lake in a motorised swan boat, dressed like a knight in shining armour. He even had a castle built as his personal residence in Wagner’s honour, calling it the "New Swan Castle" or the Neuschwanstein.
3 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, 4 horns,
trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, strings
World Premiere of Opera
Aug 1850, Weimar, Germany
First performed by SSO
Apr 1991
Frühling (“Spring”)
Beim Schlafengehen (“Going to sleep”)
Im Abendrot (“At Sunset”)
She was highly strung, fiery, and outspoken: a diva soprano who got her way; and he was stolidly calm and laid-back – a clear case of opposites attracting – their musical collaboration started off in the late 1880s and lasted throughout their marriage of 55 years. Daughter of celebrated General Adolf de Ahna and an operatic soprano, Pauline Maria de Ahna had been a student of Richard Strauss and the original Freihild in his first opera, Guntram. Strauss had described her “very complex, very feminine, a little perverse, a little coquettish, never like herself, at every minute different from how she had been a moment before.”
Pauline de Ahna was Strauss’s “muse, lover, his enemy. She was everything”, remarked Christian Strauss, the composer’s grandson. When Strauss died on 12 September 1949, Pauline also lost her will to live, and passed on a few months after his death.
Strauss was in his 80s and living in Switzerland after the end of WWII when he came across Eichendorff’s poem Im Abendrot, where an aging couple ponder the beauty of a sunset, comparing it to the sunset of their lives. This was to be the first in a set of five songs which Strauss never managed to complete. After his passing, his friend and publisher Ernst Roth put it as the last of a set of four songs and published them as the Vier Letzte Lieder, or Four Last Songs of Strauss.
The three that precede it are set to music based on the poems of Herman Hesse, and the texts of all four poems seem to be deliberately chosen by Strauss, as though making his final preparations for a farewell and departure from the earth.
In Frühling (“Spring”), the timbres of the soprano voice and each individual instrument are interwoven into a sepiacoloured picture of springs past, with sighs of contentment as the text reflects the presence of the poet’s beloved. The harp paints a picture of glistening raindrops, and the woodwinds, the image of rain-soaked earth as autumn creeps upon the month of September.
In Beim Schlafengehen (“Going to sleep”), after a short lush orchestral introduction, the soprano enters, singing for her longing for sleep and the peace it offers. Then as if representing the soul set free, a solo violin sings exultantly, and the voice echoes radiantly the soul’s wish to live on in the magic sphere of the night.
The mood of Im Abendrot (“At Sunset”) is achingly nostalgic, from the orchestral introduction to the trilling flutes that represent a loving pair of larks. After the final line “Is this, perhaps, death?”, the orchestra follows with a quote from Strauss’s earlier work, Death and Transfiguration, aptly, the last notes that Strauss wrote in his lifetime.
3 flutes (1 doubling on 2nd piccolo), 1st piccolo, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons (1 doubling on contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, harp, celesta, strings
World Premiere
May 1950, London
First performed by SSO
Nov 1984 (Rosemarie Landry, soprano; Choo Hoey, conductor)
Morgen! (1894)
Morgen! (“Tomorrow!”) is the final song from Strauss’s Op. 27 Four Songs, presented to Pauline de Ahna as a wedding gift in September 1894. It is known for its introspective and lengthy introduction by a solo violin, such that when the voice joins the music at the word Und (“and”), it is as if it is not a beginning but merely a continuation of the poetry in place. The sweet, dreamy nostalgia of the text and accompaniment leads us to hope that the couple will keep renewing their vows of love for a better tomorrow.
Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen und auf dem Wege, den ich gehen werde, wird uns, die Glücklichen, sie wieder einen inmitten dieser sonnenatmenden Erde...
Und zu dem Strand, dem weiten, wogenblauen, werden wir still und langsam niedersteigen, stumm werden wir uns in die Augen schauen, und auf uns sinkt des Glückes stummes Schweigen...
Text: John Henry Mackay
And tomorrow the sun will shine again and on the path that I take, she will again unite us, the happy ones on this sun-bathed earth...
To the blue expanse of the beach will we serenely arrive, we will look in each other’s eyes and upon us will wordless happiness descend.
Translation by Singapore Symphony3 horns, harp, strings
World Premiere 21 Nov 1897, Brussels
First performed by SSO 26 Aug 2022 (Evangeline Ng, soprano; Rodolfo Barráez, conductor)
Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82 (1915, rev. 1919)
Tempo molto moderato – Allegro moderato Andante mosso, quasi allegretto Allegro molto
In the past, Sibelius was often dismissed as a “Romantic Nationalist” composer (of Finlandia) who wrote “nature music”. Although this superficial view is no longer commonplace, it is worthwhile to point out that while he did write music that depicts nature, this is not romanticised tone pictures of strolls in the forest. Instead, his “nature music” stems from his efforts to emulate nature’s organic processes. Nature's apparent simplicity is complex, yet profoundly logical. This isn’t quite music of “man appreciating nature”. This is the music of nature being nature.
Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5 heavily preoccupied his thoughts as a symphonist. He extensively revised it, producing two further versions, the final in 1919 reducing the original four-movement structure into three by joining the first two.
The first movement begins with classic “dawn music” – a serene horn greeting with woodwind bird-calls answering. This unassuming rising-and-falling “dawn motif” is the musical seed of the entire symphony. Listen as Sibelius first broadens it into a full sunrise, before the strings quieten into fluttering chromatic wisps, fragmenting and regenerating the motif.
Sibelius belongs to the class of high modern composers of the early 20th century who stayed within the zone of tonality. To put it simplistically, he did not seek to break the boundaries of tonality, but instead sought to
advance its possibilities as far as possible, using nature’s organic, evolutionary process as a model. In this way, key works like the Fifth Symphony never sound completely “modern”, and yet is often unconventional in its strange, otherworldly progression of material.
What does this mean? It means that you will be forgiven if you say you don’t really hear a singable, sweeping “Romantic” melody, and yet you still hear tunes that could be described as a striking panorama of nature, of sometimes bewildering, primal beauty. If you can’t find the words for it, don’t worry
“One of my greatest experiences! My God, what beauty: they circled over me for a long time. Disappeared into the hazy sun like a silver ribbon, which glittered from time to time.”
– generations of musicologists and writers (including this one) have tried in vain.
Light and shadow lengthen, phrases ebb and grow, building momentum. And then, the dawn motif blazes forth in full sunlight with trumpets leading. Here is your cue: the trumpets play the rising motif several times, shortly before a subtle shift of gears takes place as the first movement melds into the original second movement with a miraculous change of meter right in the middle of a phrase.
A scherzo-like section gathers pace, laying the ground for trombones to triumphantly re-state the dawn motif in the home key of E-flat. Trumpets lead the way again in a splendid concluding tempest of unstoppable energy.
The second movement is a tender Andante mosso, quasi allegretto, its title a hint of its deceptive tempo, feeling neither slow nor fast. Using a five-note rhythmic motif, Sibelius weaves a variety of lyrical themes to create a mood of idyllic nostalgia. Hints of
the next movement’s “Swan Hymn” appear inconspicuously on the basses and brass, and the movement ends amidst heartfelt yearning.
One day, on his routine walk through the countryside, Sibelius watched as 16 swans flew overhead, a sight which took his breath away: “One of my greatest experiences! My God, what beauty: they circled over me for a long time. Disappeared into the hazy sun like a silver ribbon, which glittered from time to time.”
This encounter with nature’s soul-searching beauty inspired the most famous passage of the Fifth Symphony – the finale’s transcendent “Swan Hymn”, a steadfast swinging horn theme, joined by a soaring hymn on woodwind and celli filled with gleaming timelessness.
Uplifted by scudding clouds of strings, Sibelius modulates the majestic heartache of E-flat into the glory of C major, creating one of the most magnificent and lifeaffirming climaxes in music. Even the double
Rovaniemi, Finland
Photo by Jaakko Kemppainen
basses fervently evoke the wing-beats of this inexorable flight.
A calm takes over. Then, misterioso – muted violins recall the opening swirl of winds as themes from the Swan Hymn appear again in quiet anticipation. The symphony now begins to gradually draw together its full strength – the brass part the last remaining clouds, forging from the Swan Hymn a final sunlit celebration of life.
In one of the most distinctive endings in music, Sibelius’s Fifth concludes with six massive orchestral chords, each a final cadence separated by silence. Close your eyes and listen to these silences live in the concert hall, for the experience cannot be replicated via recordings. Hear the stillness between sky and lake, the hush of wind between leaves, and the serenity between the wing-beats of swans.
Programme notes by Natalie Ng (Wagner, Strauss) and Chia Han-Leon (Sibelius)
2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, strings
World Premiere
Dec 1915, Helsinki
First performed by SSO
Sep 1985
Symphony 924, Singapore’s only classical music station, and our partner Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) are honoured to fill your hearts with the Romantic Airs of Canadian violin extraordinaire James Ehnes, playing under the baton of SSO’s distinguished Music Director Hans Graf.
As one of the world’s foremost violinists, James Ehnes was awarded the prestigious Gramophone Artist of the Year award in 2021, an accolade that caps off two Grammy wins in Best Classical Instrumental Solo (2019) and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (2008). Having performed in orchestras worldwide – from the Boston, London, NHK and Vienna Symphony Orchestras to the New York, Munich, and Czech Philharmonic Orchestras – Romantic Airs marks the violinist’s first concerto performance with the SSO.
Ehnes will be led by the SSO’s distinguished Music Director Hans Graf, whose illustrious 40-year career includes music directorship appointments at the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg (1984 – 1994), Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (1998 – 2004) and Houston Symphony (2001 – 2013). In 2018, the Austrian-born maestro won a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.
Also featuring the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir, this Dedicated Concert promises a poetic journey of romantic songs, paying tribute to Beethoven, Brahms, Barber and Schumann. We hope it expresses what words fail to do.
Lum
Much like a human life, a piece of music once played disappears and remains only in the memory. This may have been in Brahms’s mind in 1880 as he composed Nänie in honour of his recently departed friend Anselm Feuerbach, the leading classical painter of the German 19th-century school and former professor of history painting at the Vienna Academy.
Feuerbach was particularly known for his depictions of scenes from Greco-Roman mythology and history, and appropriately Brahms chose the poem Nänie by German poet Friedrich Schiller, in which references are made to Orpheus’s failed attempt to bring Eurydice back from Hades, Aphrodite mourning her lover Adonis, and Thetis unsuccessfully trying to save her son the hero Achilles from death. Almost none of these characters are named, as Schiller had assumed his audience was sufficiently classically educated to understand the references. The title Nänie is the German form of the Latin word naenia, meaning a funeral dirge, after the Roman funeral deity Nenia, and the work is dedicated to Feuerbach’s mother Henriette.
The composer Clara Schumann, who had been highly influential in Brahms’s life by encouraging him to take the step to start composing in a symphonic idiom, had also lost her son Felix the previous year, and Brahms could not have escaped seeing the parallels between her and Feuerbach’s own mother Henriette. It is no surprise therefore that scholars have discovered what has been called the “Clara emblem” scattered all through this work as a leitmotif.
The music is marked by lush choral and instrumental sounds, with unusual orchestration. Brahms makes use of the harp (as in his German Requiem) but uses trombones and timpani without trumpets. As usual, Brahms sets the text sensitively. The piece opens in D major, with an oboe presenting the melody accompanied by winds and pizzicato strings. While beginning almost blandly, the sopranos begin what turns into a four-part fugue. The following music, referring to Orpheus, is punctuated with different combinations of instruments amidst dramatic declamations from the chorus.
Moving to the depiction of Aphrodite and Adonis, Brahms utilises a favourite effect, the grouping of accents to create polyrhythm, with intentionally jarring effect. He then gives us harmonic tension for Thetis and the Nereids, and the oboe solo reappears but transformed in meaning from the previous context. Not content to end Schiller’s poem as it appears, Brahms gives us a sort of coda by repeating the penultimate line in order to end on the word herrlich (“marvellous”).
Auch das Schöne muß sterben!
Das Menschen und Götter bezwinget, Nicht die eherne Brust rührt es des stygischen Zeus. Einmal nur erweichte die Liebe den Schattenbeherrscher, Und an der Schwelle noch, streng, rief er zurück sein Geschenk. Nicht stillt Aphrodite dem schönen Knaben die Wunde, Die in den zierlichen Leib grausam der Eber geritzt.
Nicht errettet den göttlichen Held die unsterbliche Mutter, Wann er, am skäischen Tor fallend, sein Schicksal erfüllt.
Aber sie steigt aus dem Meer mit allen Töchtern des Nereus, Und die Klage hebt an um den verherrlichten Sohn. Siehe! Da weinen die Götter, es weinen die Göttinnen alle, Daß das Schöne vergeht, daß das Vollkommene stirbt. Auch ein Klaglied zu sein im Mund der Geliebten, ist herrlich; Denn das Gemeine geht klanglos zum Orkus hinab.
Text: Friedrich Schiller
The beautiful, too, must die! That which subjugates men and gods does not stir the brazen heart of the stygian Zeus. Only once did love melt the Lord of Shadows, and just at the threshhold, he strictly yanked back his gift. Aphrodite does not heal the beautiful boy’s wound, which the boar ripped cruelly in that delicate body. Neither does the immortal mother save the divine hero when, falling at the Scaean Gate, he fulfills his fate. She ascends from the sea with all the daughters of Nereus, and lifts up a lament for her glorious son. Behold! the gods weep; all the goddesses weep, that the beautiful perish, that perfection dies. But to be a dirge on the lips of loved ones can be a marvellous thing; for that which is common goes down to Orcus in silence.
Choir
soprano, alto, tenor, bass
Instrumentation
2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 3 trombones, timpani, harp, strings
World Premiere 6 Dec 1881, Zürich
First performed by SSO 14 Mar 1997 (with the Singapore Symphony Chorus, conducted by Lan Shui)
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Elegischer Gesang for Choir and Orchestra, Op. 118 (1814) SSO PREMIERE
Intimacy and tenderness are not words often associated with Beethoven’s name — one tends to think of big-scale dramatic works of great intensity — yet here in the Elegischer Gesang, we find a very personal and gentle side to the composer.
Written in 1814, it was dedicated to Beethoven’s friend and patron Johann Baptiste, the Baron Pasqualati von Osterberg, whose wife Eleonore died three years earlier in childbirth at the age of 24. Between 1804 and 1815, Beethoven took up residence twice in the Baron’s Vienna home, for a total of eight years, and it was in the Pasqualati home that his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Für Elise, and his opera Fidelio were written.
Sanft, wie du lebtest, hast du vollendet, zu heilig für den Schmerz! Kein Auge wein’ ob des himmlischen Geistes Heimkehr.
from “Bey der Kunde von Jacobi's Tod” by Johann Christoph Friedrich Haug (1761–1829)
Scored for strings and choir, the piece’s text is taken from a poem by Johann Christoph Friedrich Haug written in honour of the death of philosopher-poet Johann Georg Jacobi. Beethoven’s ‘heroic’ phase was over, and the Elegischer Gesang looks forward to his more introspective music to come, perhaps reflecting the purpose — a piece written for a friend rather than for the public. Dynamics are sparse, mostly soft, and the music is marked by a sense of searching.
Gently, as you lived, thus have you died, too holy for sorrow! Let no eye shed tears for the heavenly spirit’s return home.
Choir soprano, alto, tenor, bass
Instrumentation strings World Premiere Unknown
SAMUEL BARBER (1910–1981) Violin Concerto, Op. 14 (1939, revised ed. 2012)
Having made his money from a soap manufacturing company, the JewishAmerican industrialist Samuel Simeon Fels began to give back to society in his chosen home of Philadelphia. The household soap tycoon engaged in active philanthropy and became a patron of the arts, and in 1939 commissioned Samuel Barber to write a violin concerto for Fels’s ward Iso Briselli. Briselli was a young violinist who had graduated in the same year as Barber from the Curtis Institute of Music.
Barber began the writing in Switzerland, but the outbreak of World War II forced him to move home to Pennsylvania. The first two movements were received enthusiastically in October 1939 but Briselli’s violin coach Albert Meiff felt the violin parts unsuitable and insisted on a rewrite.
Unusually, the scoring includes a piano and omits trombones, but is otherwise conservative. The work opens with Barber’s trademark melancholy lyricism, with a wistful melody on the violin — no orchestra introduction here. The piano punctuates the work with accents and supports the ensemble prominently, almost functioning like a modern basso continuo. The long spun-out main theme contrasts with the perky and simple secondary minor-key theme in the Phrygian mode, and the interplay between the two gives us the drama of the sonata-form movement. A short cadenza is included, despite Barber’s
Presto in moto perpetuo
dislike of cadenzas. Barber’s first work, composed at the age of seven, was entitled Sadness, and in a way this work continues in that vein, being marked by reflection and poignancy.
Strings and an oboe solo open the second movement, setting a scene of calm introspection tinged with moodiness. Did Barber perhaps write this on a ship leaving a Europe about to be ravaged by war? The violin enters shortly before the unsettled second theme, amplifying a sense of regret and tension, and eventually takes up the lovely first theme. Another brief cadenza appears — was the brevity of the cadenza part of Meiff’s objections?
Barber, working feverishly through grief at losing his father, finished the work in late November, delivering the last movement. The finale, one-third the length of the first movement, overflows with virtuosity and flashiness, and opens with an endless stream of triplets on the violin, intensely driven on by relentless pounding interjections from the orchestra. The violin only gets a break when the orchestra presents the main rondo theme, and again when the orchestra gets a short passage with snare drums and timpani. The “perpetual motion” picks up momentum and a powerful dissonance marks the final ending.
Briselli felt the finale, while powerful, was far too short and needed to balance the other two longer movements, while Barber stood by it and refused to change a work in which he was satisfied. Briselli eventually gave up his rights to the concerto and both men remained friendly till Barber’s death in 1981. The work was eventually premiered in 1941. Briselli said that with
a different finale, the work would become one of the great American violin concertos. Nevertheless, it has become one of the most frequently performed of all 20th-century violin concertos.
2 flutes (1 doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani (doubling on snare drum), piano, strings
World Premiere Feb 1941
First performed by SSO 20 Oct 1989 (Elmar Oliveira, violin; Choo Hoey, conductor)
ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810–1856)
Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61 (1845)
Sostenuto assai. Allegro ma non troppo Scherzo. Allegro vivace Adagio expressivo Allegro molto vivace
Behind every successful man there is a strong woman, or so the saying goes. In the German composer Robert Schumann’s case, it was his wife Clara Schumann née Wieck, herself a composer of note and one of the finest pianists of her time. Before marriage in 1840, he had composed only for the piano and voice, but afterwards, encouraged by Clara, he jumped into symphonic creation.
Toward the end of 1845, Schumann had just recovered from a mental breakdown and, on doctor’s orders, moved from Leipzig to Dresden, where it was hoped the drier climate and quieter, more conservative scene would be good for him. In the previous year, he had confided to Mendelssohn that he heard drums and trumpets in his mind, but at Dresden he recovered sufficiently to resume composition. While Schumann sketched
the Symphony in C major, Op. 61, in a fortnight, the demons of self-doubt, tinnitus, dementia, and bad health slowed him so much that it took nearly a year to be properly fleshed out.
The symphony opens with a string theme almost like a Bach chorale (no doubt Schumann had been influenced by his time in Leipzig where Bach lived and worked), before the “drums and trumpet” appear — was Schumann perhaps trying to exorcise his demons by giving them musical form? The entire first movement is full of stormy emotion without respite. The scherzo that follows is tight and driven, sprightly as if manically full of busy activity cleaning up after the storm in the previous movement. Peace and stillness reign in the delicate third movement, with strings and oboe giving us breathtakingly beautiful themes (including a quotation from Bach). Writing this movement exhausted Schumann such that he had a nervous seizure and took a break, unable to write further, but his strength came back in time for the optimistic finale, affirming his health and determination. Unfortunately, this improvement was temporary — following years were to see the darkness close in and after a number of suicide attempts he entered a mental asylum in 1853, where he remained till his death.
“Drums and trumpets in C have been blaring in my head. I have no idea what will come of it.”
The finale leads us meanderingly from darkness into light, giving us along the way snippets from Mozart’s Magic Flute and even the song Schumann dedicated to Clara on their wedding day. Indeed, the entire symphony is full of coded messages, ciphers (such as B-A-C-H), and short quotations from earlier works by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and even Schumann himself — he really was using every weapon in his arsenal to fight the inner demons. The result is a heroic and uplifting work that betrays none of the circumstances of its composition. As one of Oscar Wilde’s characters said, “we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Programme notes by Edward C. Yong
Instrumentation
2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, strings
World Premiere 5 Nov 1846, Leipzig
First performed by SSO 26 Oct 1984
Esplanade
Hans
Alexei
Symphony No. 30 in D major, K. 202 SSO Premiere
Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments*
for Piano and Orchestra* SSO Premiere
Symphony No. 28 in C major, K. 200 SSO Premiere
mins
mins
mins
mins
mins
Concert Duration: approximately 1 hr 50 mins (with 20 mins intermission)
Symphony No. 30 in D major, K. 202 (1774) SSO PREMIERE
The obviously rhetorical opening of tonight’s concert is powerful and dramatic, but it could have been even more so: Mozart’s original timpani parts were lost shortly after the first performance, and have never been reconstructed. But one can easily imagine where Mozart would have liked the added power from the drums to punctuate this exciting first movement, especially given the unusually complex construction of this particular sonata form. The transitions between themes take longer than expected, covering more harmonic ground than is usual for a typical Classical work. Phrase lengths are shortened and lengthened unpredictably, and Mozart works hard here to subvert expectations, bringing bits of themes back into the music here and there, creating the impression of a huge organic form instead of a musical container with three divisions (exposition, development, and recapitulation).
The winds and brass are left out of the second movement, but the purity of the string sound is one of Mozart’s strengths, and the ensemble writing here rivals much of Mozart’s mature music, with more unexpected “wrong” harmonies and imitations between parts. Never once does the listener get presented with “music to specification”; this is an inspired creation, with much of the same thematic interactions as in the first movement.
Mozart’s third movement is a minuet only in name: the thick orchestration and broad tempo turn this into a dramatic statement, complete with chromatic harmonies more suited to orchestral and operatic proclamations. The complete contrast which follows, a winding trio in G major, manages to be even more chromatic despite its short length, and the movement feels like it raises questions that the finale has to answer.
The full orchestra launches the Presto finale with a descending D major arpeggio, recalling the first movement. Again, Mozart subverts expectations with regards to how regular his musical phrases should be, and the repeat feels breathless, with the orchestra given no rest throughout the movement. The chattering conversation that follows between winds and strings is a typically Mozartian trick of providing aural contrast without slowing the pace of the musical argument. The music arrives at a grand ending, but Mozart tacks on a coda, with the orchestra fading out like an afterthought.
oboes, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, strings
Molto allegro Andantino con moto Menuetto and Trio Presto
This concerto was Stravinsky’s attempt at bolstering his own finances by writing piano music that he could play himself. An earlier attempt produced the Three Movements from Petrushka, dedicated to Arthur Rubinstein, but he soon realised that was too difficult for himself, and thus this piano concerto was born.
Stravinsky’s irreverent attitudes toward the past and his deliberately provocative view of his own music as “an object” informed much of his music in the inter-war period. Commonly called “neoclassical” in style, it really is more of an eclectic mix of anything and everything that inspired him, from the obsessive dotted rhythms of Baroque overtures that open this piano concerto to the motoric chugging of Futurist music that marks the piano entry.
Immediately the audience is treated to music that inhabits a completely different sound world from the grandeur of Romantic concerti: there are no strings in this orchestra, and Stravinsky’s syncopated and unpredictable rhythms mark an approach to composition completely divorced from earlier traditions. Despite the presence of grand gestures, one feels that everything done here is done with tongue firmly planted in cheek, with an A minor tonality carelessly smudged with ‘illogical’ dissonances, and a completely over-the-top Picardy third ending in the major key.
The opening of the second movement is a direct homage to Bach, but that is the extent of Stravinsky’s respect: the dissonance kicks back in in the very next bar, and huge contrasts in volume arise without preparation, as if changing channels on a radio. The cadenza sections function here as a brief nod to concerto traditions, with roulades and arabesques in the manner of Chopin, but with harmonies firmly belonging to the 20th century. In the middle of all this is a folk-like melody in oboe and cor anglais, accompanied by a wash of modal harmonies from the piano. Is the final C major cadence here a real ending?
The composer instantly negates that uneasy piece, launching right into a sustained toccata passage underpinned by a D-B-D-B oscillation in the bass of the orchestra. While the movement is sometimes described as “jazzy”, it is much more historically accurate to recognise the relentless syncopations and uneven beats as Stravinsky’s own extension from the Rite of Spring from a decade before. Much of what the piano does here almost seems unrelated to the orchestra, until the movement grinds to a halt and the Baroque rhythm returns. The actual end of the concerto, in C minor, is as much a throwaway ending as it is Stravinsky’s artistic statement that he was absolutely going to write music however he liked!
Circles in a Circle (1923) by Wassily Kandinsky
key figure of the Bauhaus movement, Kandinsky's
has a confluence of music and
Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra (1928) SSO PREMIERE
II III
Stravinsky’s next concertante work was one he did not deign to grant the status of “concerto” to, despite its more traditional orchestration and its more recognisably traditional harmonic language. He had just come from working on The Fairy’s Kiss, a Tchaikovsky pastiche, and that master’s balletic language and lush orchestration had clearly rubbed off on Stravinsky. The expected Stravinskian rhythmic angularity still exists, of course, and the opening is about as Stravinsky as one gets, but there is something more cosmopolitan and mature about this piece. Some of the conversations between piano and orchestra (notably the G minor sections of the first Presto) even sound like the cabaret music of Poulenc!
Much of this work is episodic in style, lending it an air of the ballet stage. The slow movement that follows is a stylistically appropriate narrative, complete with colourful wind writing, and a dramatic middle section that moves from a stormy F minor to what almost sounds like walking bass in F major. However, the work actually formed around the final part, which was the earliest to be composed, and it is this movement that bears the most resemblance to the Concerto for Piano and Winds heard earlier tonight. Here we are treated to more syncopations and dissonant harmonies, though not without much more restraint from the composer, who had finished indulging his enfant terrible personality at this point in his career.
Stravinsky always considered the Capriccio more stylish than the Concerto, and he draws parallels to Weber and Mendelssohn in his own thoughts about the piece. In large parts of the finale, especially when Stravinsky keeps G major around for a while, the lightness of the orchestration and the piano writing in thirds makes that comparison easy to hear. The music is graceful here, tinged with elegance, written with the masterful confidence of a composer who had fully come into his own and with complete control over his musical toolkit.
3 flutes (1 doubling on piccolo),
2 oboes, cor anglais,
3 clarinets (1 doubling on E-flat clarinet,
1 doubling on bass clarinet),
2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets,
3 trombones, tuba, timpani, strings
World Premiere
6 Dec 1929, Paris
Symphony No. 28 in C major, K. 200 (1774) SSO PREMIERE
Mozart’s decision to start his 28th symphony with a minuet, marked Allegro spiritoso, is a brave choice, and one that would have lulled his listeners into a false sense of security, leading them to expect a piece of slight dimensions, perhaps of an evening’s light diversion, or a “divertissement”. What we get instead is a surprisingly extended exposition given the opening theme’s simplicity, though the triple metre demands that the orchestra carry a graceful poise throughout.
This early symphony, the last of the Salzburg pieces, dates from the early 1770s, when Mozart was still a teenager, but there are signs of forthcoming musical exploration: the immediate turn to the subdominant in the development is a common feature of his later operatic writing, especially when coupled with bold forte-piano contrasts between varying instrumental groups. The slow movement here contains moments of more fully fleshed-out counterpoint, with the strings in particular carrying parts of greater independence. Even amidst the sustained legato, Mozart cannot resist flashes of cheekiness, both in his rhythms and in the use of winds to punctuate the ends of cadences.
The minuet proper, as the third movement, is almost as long as the first, with a focus on the horns, which get to play alone at key points. The music contains a kind of very
upright joy here, though the trio (featuring more string counterpoint) has a few rather surprising chromatic outbursts that belie a little more emotional weight than would otherwise be expected, given the colour and mood of the past movements.
Mozart’s finale is more than a little reminiscent of Haydn’s hurried Presto movements, and it is worth remembering that he was influenced not only by the great Joseph, but also by his brother Michael Haydn, who was held in high regard for much of musical history, though his star has faded over the past century. The carefree mood of the music here and the bustling strings easily recall some of the opera overtures, especially as Mozart eschewed the rondo form for a weightier sonata form, balancing out the “light” minuet of the first movement. It is Mozart’s brightest, happiest C major, and while this symphony is not of the same vintage as his great late works, we can hear Mozart revelling in his skill and taking joy in his youthful genius.
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