VCHpresents Chamber: Raise A Glass To Mozart, With Andreas Ottensamer

RAISE A GLASS TO MOZART, WITH ANDREAS OTTENSAMER 11 DEC 2021, 7.30PM VICTORIA CONCERT HALL

PROGRAMME PHILIP GLASS (ARR. FOR MARIMBA DUO) Mad Rush

5 mins

Mark Suter, percussion Mario Choo, percussion

ANN SOUTHAM (ARR. FOR MARIMBA DUO) Glass Houses No. 5

7 mins

Mark Suter, percussion Mario Choo, percussion

CARL NIELSEN Wind Quintet Op. 43 I. Allegro ben moderato II. Menuet III. Praeludium – Theme with Variations Evgueni Brokmiller, flute Elaine Yeo, oboe Liu Yoko, clarinet Jamie Hersch, horn Liu Chang, bassoon

24 mins

MENDELSSOHN Selections from Songs without Words (arr.Andreas Ottensamer) I. Op. 30, No. 4 Agitato e con fuoco II. Op. 19, No. 6 Andante sostenuto: Venetianisches Gondellied (“Venetian Boat Song”) III. Op. 62, No. 6 Allegretto grazioso: Frühlingslied

("Spring Song") IV. Op. 67, No. 5 Moderato V. Op. 85, No. 2 Allegro agitato VI. Op. 30, No. 6 Allegretto tranquillo: Venetianisches

Gondellied ("Venetian Boat Song") VII. Op. 102, No. 5 Allegro vivace

18 mins

Andreas Ottensamer, clarinet Chan Yoong-Han, violin Cao Can, violin Marietta Ku, viola Ng Pei-Sian, cello, The HEAD Foundation Chair Wang Xu, double bass

MOZART Larghetto from Clarinet Quintet, K. 581

7 mins

Andreas Ottensamer, clarinet Chan Yoong-Han, violin Cao Can, violin Marietta Ku, viola Ng Pei-Sian, cello, The HEAD Foundation Chair

CONCERT DURATION: approximately 1 hour 30 mins (with no intermission)

In 2021, Ottensamer made his UK conducting debut with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and has delivered electrifying performances with the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra and the Gstaad Festival Orchestra, amongst others. In August 2021 he was awarded the Neeme Järvi Prize of the Gstaad Festival Conducting Academy.

Andreas Ottensamer clarinet

Andreas Ottensamer has captured audiences and critics alike with his distinct musicianship and versatility as conductor, clarinetist and artistic director.

One of the leading instrumentalists of our time, Ottensamer performs as a clarinet soloist in major concert halls around the world with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Seoul Philharmonic and the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons, Sir Simon Rattle, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Daniel Harding and Lorenzo Viotti.

Ottensamer is artistic director of the Bürgenstock Festival in Switzerland. His artistic partnerships include work with Yuja Wang, SeongJin Cho, Lisa Batiashvili, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Gautier Capuçon and Sol Gabetta.

Andreas Ottensamer is an exclusive artist with Deutsche Grammophon. With his album "Blue Hour", he received his second Opus Klassik award as “Instrumentalist of the year”.

Andreas Ottensamer was born in 1989 in Vienna, receiving his first piano lessons when he was four.

At age ten he began studying cello at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, then changed to the clarinet in 2003. In 2009 he interrupted his Harvard undergraduate studies to become a scholar of the Orchestra Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Since March 2011, Ottensamer has held the position of principal clarinet with the Berlin Philharmonic.

PROGRAMME NOTES

ANN SOUTHAM (1937 - 2010) Glass Houses No. 5

PHILLIP GLASS (b. 1937) Mad Rush

The set of pieces entitled Glass Houses is an example of how other composers started engaging with the idea of minimalism after the original trailblazers laid the foundations. Ann Southam’s approach to creating blocks of sound that weave in and out of each other, as in this one, is immediately distinct from Glass’s method of repeating entire sections and phrases. She creates more interest by having a stationary lower part under a widely varying upper voice that covers more range and contains more variety in rhythms.

In so doing, Glass Houses becomes infinitely more technically challenging: the stability of the lower part is paramount. Because the players are no longer in sync, but forever playing against each other in polyrhythm, the upper part has to be able to ignore the rhythmic pull of the lower, yet phrase and develop its melodies in strict time independently. The result is a vertiginous display of virtuosity: a truly “mad rush” of notes from beginning to end, and a joyful celebration of the simplicity of C major.

Philip Glass needs no introduction as the co-founder of one of the most influential musical movements of the last century. Minimalism, as it was quickly established, involves the repetition of tiny fragments of music to construct a whole piece; Glass has described himself as a composer of “music with repetitive structures”. Where this type of music sits within the “classical” tradition is hard to say. Some musicologists have tried to draw links to trance and techno music, and Glass made a trip to the San Francisco Jazz Festival earlier this year to perform this very piece. Certainly, the ideas behind minimalism have become a mainstay of film scoring, with Glass’s own Koyaanisqatsi being a groundbreaker in this field.

The opening of Mad Rush has a simple chord progression elaborated in broken chords with a 3-against-2 rhythm. This aims to lull the listener into a false sense of security before the contrasting agitated section crashes in, with irregular repetitions and more outré time signatures (e.g. 14/16) being used, as well as the introduction of the first chromatic notes. It takes a few cycles of this before a simple melody emerges at the top of the texture, as if trying to reconcile the previous moments.

CARL NIELSEN (1865 - 1931) Wind Quartet, Op. 43 I. Allegro ben moderato II. Menuet III. Praeludium – Theme with Variations Nielsen’s wish to write a concerto for every member of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet was sadly never to come to fruition, as he died after completing only two. It has been a frequent topic of conversation between wind players as to what the others might have been like, given the brilliance on display in the flute and clarinet concerti. Fortunately, we have the Wind Quintet to listen to, written for the very same group that inspired Nielsen’s concerto project.

In a burst of creativity during the early 1920s, Nielsen turned out his massive Fifth Symphony, after which he instantly started work on this Quintet.

Laying down his first sketches at the start of 1922, he was done by April, even while he was taking on work as a guest conductor in Göthenburg. His packed schedule did not impact on the quality of the work, however, and the first movement is filled with an open, honest freshness quite unlike any other music of the time: there is no Gallic impressionism, nor any hint of Germanic profundity. Instead, in the widely-spaced textures, the Northern air comes through, and this continues in the lightly humorous minuet of the second movement.

The somber Prelude that introduces the Theme and Variations of the third movement is a dissonant chorale that allows each player to demonstrate their solo capabilities.

Especially interesting to listen for is the oboe switching to the lower sibling, the cor anglais. After this tumultuous start, the A major hymn tune (Min Jesus, lad mit Hjerte faa, from Nielsen’s earlier choral works) is a relief, and what follows is a rather antique-looking set of classical variations. An emphatic restatement ties the whole piece up, and provides a satisfying emotional close.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809 - 1847) Selections from Songs without Words (arr. Andreas Ottensamer) I. Op. 30, No. 4 Agitato e con fuoco II. Op. 19, No. 6 Andante

sostenuto: Venetianisches Gondellied (“Venetian Boat Song”) III. Op. 62, No. 6 Allegretto

grazioso: Frühlingslied

("Spring Song") IV. Op. 67, No. 5 Moderato V. Op. 85, No. 2 Allegro agitato VI. Op. 30, No. 6

Allegretto tranquillo: Venetianisches

Gondellied ("Venetian Boat Song") VII. Op. 102, No. 5 Allegro vivace

The fiery storm of repeated notes in the Agitato e con fuoco (Op. 30 No. 4) would have made this a minivirtuoso piece for the drawing room, and the “Venetian Boat Song” (Op. 19 No. 6) that follows is a sombre painting showing Mendelssohn at ease both with technical showiness and expressive simplicity.

Mendelssohn can be credited as the sole inventor of this genre. With the increasing spread of the pianoforte throughout the middle class in the early part of the 19th century came an appetite for accessible music (original compositions, or arrangements of popular tunes) that could be played by people of all technical abilities.

Mendelssohn tapped into this demand by writing short character pieces at various difficulty levels, though it must be said that this was not a purely economic decision. The short lyrical work was a mainstay of early Romantic writing, often with descriptive titles; Mendelssohn simply went further in identifying the picturesque as being the heart of such pieces.

The second “Venetian Boat Song” (Op. 30 No. 6) is more uplifting than the earlier one in this programme, despite its minor key; the melody soaring over the rocking accompaniment yearns for words to go with the notes.

They were first published in London as “Original Melodies for the Pianoforte”, but later renamed “Songs without Words”, and it is the latter title which has stuck.

The “Spring Song” (Op. 62 No. 6) is possibly the most famous of Songs without Words, and carries currency as a teaching staple even today.

The melancholy B minor Moderato (Op. 67 No. 5) that follows has Brahmsian profundity in its chromatic windings, whereas the wild A minor of Op. 85 No. 2 is Schumannesque in its desperation.

The final one tonight, Op. 102 No. 5, is a quick galop that brings to mind swirling ballet dancers, and provides a suitably sparkling end to this selection of songs.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756 - 1791) Larghetto from Clarinet Quintet, K. 581 Mozart was enraptured with the sound of the clarinet since he first heard in the run-up to composing his Paris Symphony as a 22-year-old.

But it took till a few years later before Mozart met Anton Stadler in Vienna, where the latter had been established as a clarinettist and basset-hornist of the very best calibre. It was known to colleagues that Stadler was also “a great artist on many wind instruments”, and could also play the violin and viol.

Mozart’s courting of Stadler’s musical talent began immediately, as the two great musicians acknowledged each other’s fame. The Kegelstatt Trio, for clarinet, viola, and piano, was written with Stadler’s talents in mind, and the increasing prominence of clarinet solos in Mozart’s later operas was due to Stadler’s willingness to travel: while Le nozze di Figaro was premiered in Vienna, La clemenza di Tito contained huge parts for basset-horn which Stadler journeyed to Prague for.

The Clarinet Quintet is today known as a genre-defining work. After Mozart, it took until Brahms for the next great quintet to be composed (1891, more than a century later!), then Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s (in 1906), although many lesser composers have tried their hands at the ensemble. Mozart giving the clarinet the pride of place was not unexpected, given his admiration for Stadler. The second movement is undoubtedly the warm heart of the piece: a soaring Larghetto in true Mozartian opera-concerto character, with an outpouring of melody from the clarinet. There is little more that needs to be said when Mozart is at his finest.

Programme notes by Thomas Ang

SINGAPORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Founded in 1979, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) is Singapore’s flagship orchestra, touching lives through classical music and providing the heartbeat of the cultural scene in the cosmopolitan city-state. Our Chief Conductor is Hans Graf. While the SSO performs frequently at the Esplanade Concert Hall, for a more intimate experience, we return to the place of our beginnings, the Victoria Concert Hall (VCH) – the home of the SSO. The VCH is host to our popular Children’s, Family and biannual free Lunchtime Concerts as well as our VCHpresents chamber series.

HANS GRAF Chief Conductor

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