THE PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA OF YALE n o v e m ber 1, 2 0 1 3 · f rid ay 8 pm · woolse y h all
Krzysztof Penderecki, conductor
k r z ysztof pender eck i Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960)
Toshiyuki Shimada, conductor
sergei prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16 I. Andantino — Allegretto II. Scherzo: Vivace III. Intermezzo: Allegro moderato IV. Finale: Allegro tempestoso
Henry Kramer, piano* * Winner of the 2013 Woolsey Concerto Competition Intermission Krzysztof Penderecki, conductor
krzysztof penderecki Symphony No. 2, “Christmas Symphony”
Tonight’s program is dedicated to the memory of
lawrence leighton smith (April 8, 1936 – October 25, 2013) Music Director of the Yale Philharmonia and coordinator of the orchestral conducting program at the Yale School of Music from 1995 to 2004
As a courtesy to the audience and performers, please silence all electronic devices. Photography of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please do not leave the hall during musical selections. Thank you.
Robert Blocker, Dean
pro g ra m no tes Krysztof Penderecki » b. 1933
Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
ing in the repertoire. It encapsulates all that is beloved
progra m note s his acrobatic piano writing, his of Prokofiev’s music:
Does Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima open with a scream? Or a simply an abstract and sharp cluster in the strings? The original title of the work, 8’27”, indicates a work of abstract musical content, one that prizes the exploration of timbres for their own sake, as in the music of John Cage. But as the musicologist Richard Taruskin notes, the government-run Polish Composers’ Union was not interested in printing such an elaborate and detailed score—until, that is, the title was changed to Threnody. The Communist government was suddenly very interested in publishing this newly politicized piece, because Threnody could now be used as a piece of propaganda against the U.S. — the perpetuator of the Hiroshima bombings. But politics and intentions aside, the opening of Threnody is unmistakably one of the most powerful and original musical moments in the Western canon. So visceral and brutal is the opening that the association with the “solemn and catastrophic,” as the composer notes, may be impossible to avoid. Cast in roughly three large section, the opening part of Threnody works with the tone cluster—that is, a large and dissonant collections of notes, as if one simply pressed one’s arm down on a piano, playing all the white and black keys). The second section is quieter and gentler; sections of strings quietly glide up and down until finally, in a giant uproar, the work explodes into its third section, even harsher, louder, and more potent than the opening.
— Christopher Cerrone Sergei Prokofiev » 1891–1953 Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16 “A Babel of insane sounds heaped upon one another without rhyme or reason,” wrote one critic following the premiere of the first version of Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto in 1913. This version, written by an enfant terrible still in his early twenties, was lost in a fire during the Russian Revolution of 1917. When the composer revisited the work in 1924, after the premiere of his more popular and arguably less “offensive” Third Concerto, he yielded the version that remains today, noting that it was “so completely rewritten that it might almost be considered No. 4.” Prokofiev remarked on the athleticism of his First Concerto, referring to its “soccer quality”; with the Second, he would “strive for greater depth of content.” Few, however, would deny the athletic qualities of this work, which has come to be counted among the most demand-
intense projection of emotion into music, his wide variety of characters and styles, and his colorful, brilliant orchestral writing, which elevates the orchestra from the role of mere accompaniment to that of worthy companion or, occasionally, adversary to the piano. Its premiere left listeners “frozen with fright, hair standing on end,” according to one account. Time may have softened the shock factor, but the concerto’s freshness and vitality remain today. The work is in four movements. The first begins innocently enough, yet builds to incredible intensity. Following a brief, playful gesture in the clarinets and plucked strings, a lyrical, almost vocal melody emerges in the piano over undulating triplets (the composer even writes narrante or “spoken” in the solo part). A far more disjointed, sarcastic, and playful secondary theme interrupts, providing a sort of comic relief.When the primary, vocal theme returns, it does so with the piano now alone. Within a massive cadenza for the instrument — the composer writes “gigantic” — one almost forgets that there is an orchestra on stage. When the orchestra does return, however, it makes its presence clearly known. At the climactic moment of the movement, the playful pizzicato gesture from the opening few bars is transformed into a searing brass statement that vehemently engulfs the piano after its lengthy solo venture. This moment of great energy exhausts itself rather quickly, leaving the weary, sighing piano alone to once more brood upon its opening theme. The second and third movements, though more modest in scale than the first, are no less rich in character: the second is a whiplash scherzo with dizzying perpetual motion, like a musical counterpart to a game of soccer. The third, a sort of grotesque circus processional with playful dialogue between soloist and orchestra, might, with imagination, convey elephants and trapeze artists. The finale is on the same grand scale as the first movement. A distinctly Russian-sounding theme, mournful in tone and reminiscent of Mussorgsky’s folk-inspired melodies, provides moments of respite from the abruptly shifting, manic, and savage nature of this exciting and “tempestuous” movement.
Krysztof Penderecki » b. 1933 Symphony No. 2, “Christmas Symphony” Krzysztof Penderecki has a habit of composing on Christmas Eve. For him, it is a time for both reflection and anticipation, when he contemplates the past year’s work, and looks ahead to the future. What has become “a kind of superstitious habit” for the composer yielded — on that late December night in 1979 — his Second Symphony, fittingly subtitled “Christmas,” and dedicated to the conductor Zubin
Mehta, who led its premiere with the New York Philharmonic. The retrospective aspect of the composer’s superstitious practice reveals itself in the style of the work. Absent here are the avant-garde coloristic elements of some earlier compositions, including dense chord clusters and unconventional instrumental techniques. Instead, Penderecki looks even further back in music history, adopting a more neo-Romantic tone, in the vein of the lateRomantic symphonic tradition. This is not to say that the symphony is conventional by any means. The form, which crystallized in Penderecki’s mind on Christmas Eve, is unique. The symphony is in one continuous movement, unlike the traditional four. It is written in an overarching sonata-allegro form, in which the themes from the opening of the work are developed in its highly contrapuntal middle section, and return at the end in a recapitulation. This return seems unmistakable in hearing the piece, “heralded,” in the composer’s words, “fortissimo, by a minor-third motif in the timpani.” However, here Penderecki has created a false recapitulation lasting only seventeen bars, defying expectations. When the timpani motive returns again after this deception, the recognizable, grave music from the very opening of the symphony is heard, signalling the true recapitulation of the movement. Though its title evokes the festive holiday season, the symphony is sombre in tone. Perhaps an image of a solitary journey across a bleak snow-filled landscape might fit the listener’s impressions more than would a gathering around a warm hearth with friends and family. In fact, the only transparent yuletide reference in the work is in the lyrical second subject of the work, first heard, in a singing style, by the horn and strings. This subject is based upon the Christmas carol “Silent Night,” which is hinted at earlier in the movement in the low woodwinds. The doleful quality of the symphony stems largely from the aforementioned interval of the minor third, the seed from which the themes of the entire work are grown. It can be found, for instance, as the descending interval between the words “Silent” and “Night” in the melody of the carol. The listener can trace the mutation of this seed interval, and its more optimistic major-third sibling, throughout the entirety of the symphony, while also following the appearance, development, and return of the subjects from the beginning. The organic quality of this musical transformation from seed to sprawling, many-limbed tree ties the symphony together through fascinating means, and simultaneously ties Penderecki to his predecessors – Nielsen, Sibelius, Brahms, Schumann, and Beethoven, among others known for using this method – as another master of the symphonic tradition. — Patrick Jankowski
Krzysztof Penderecki, conductor Krzysztof Penderecki has embodied the offbeat musical trends of our time as well as any living composer. Born in Dębica outside Crakow in 1933, he followed the European avant-garde before developing an eclectic mixture that involved reexplorations of tradition—and helped pave the way, perhaps, for the neo-Romantic movement in the
1970s and ’80s. Penderecki came of age in Poland
at a time of relative artistic liberalization. But while composers like Boulez, Stockhausen, Nono, Berio, and others explored idioms of almost impenetrable density (both of musical texture and of idea), Penderecki and his colleagues Lutosławski and Górecki used simpler, more direct materials and means. Works like the Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, the St. Luke Passion, the operas The Devils of Loudon and Paradise Lost, and the first two symphonies assured him a position among the most brilliant innovators of the twentieth century. As early as the mid-1970s Penderecki had begun to feel a pull back toward traditional tonal procedures. Later he spoke of the orthodox “dictatorship” of the European avant-garde, and how the oppressive nature of their dogma led him to move toward what might be called “neoaccessibility”— a sort of reconciliation, perhaps, of his avant-garde persona with his Romantic, traditional side. Audiences found themselves ready to grasp works like the Violin Concerto written for Isaac Stern (1977) or the Cello Concerto No. 2 for Mstislav Rostropovich (1988). In addition to works that tackled big subjects with massive forces (Utrenja or the Entombment of Christ) and commemorated big events (the 1200 th anniversary of the Salzburg Cathedral, the 3,000 th anniversary of Jerusalem), throughout his career Penderecki also worked in conventional genres. At age 79, he continues to compose prolifically, often conducting his own works. His music has had a wide reach, not just in concert halls and on opera stages but in major motion pictures as well. Penderecki has had a longstanding relationship with Yale, beginning with his years on the faculty of the School of Music ( 1973–1979. He has made a number of memorable appearances conducting his music with the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale.
a rt i st p rofiles
Henry Kramer, piano Originally from Cape Elizabeth, Maine, pianist Henry Kramer’s performances have been lauded as “triumphant” and “thrilling” (New York Times) and “technically effortless” (La Presse, Montreal). He was a top prizewinner in the 2010 8th National Chopin Competition and the 2011 Montreal International Music Competition. Most recently, Henry garnered the top prize and prize for the Best Performance of Strauss Lieder at the 6th China Shanghai International Piano Competition. Henry has appeared as a soloist with the Shanghai Philharmonic, the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Ankara, Turkey; the Portland Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Métropolitain du Montreal, the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, and the University of Miami Frost School of Music Orchestra, in addition to solo recitals across the U.S. and internationally. In the spring of 2012 he made his European debut in a solo recital at the Concertgebouw. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio, WMFT Chicago, WQXR in New York City, CBC Radio-Canada, and online at medici.tv. An engaging chamber musician, Henry has been featured in performances at Lincoln Center and has participated in the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, and the Sarasota Music Festival. He is a founding member of the Newbury Piano Trio, with whom he appeared at the La Jolla Music Society’s Summerfest in 2012. This season he will go on tour with musicians from Ravinia’s Steans Insitute. Henry holds Master of Music and Bachelor of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Robert McDonald and Julian Martin. He recently completed his Artist Diploma with Boris Berman at the Yale School of Music, where he received the Charles S. Miller Prize for most outstanding first-year pianist.
Toshiyuki Shimada, conductor Toshiyuki Shimada is Associate Professor (Adjunct) of Conducting and Music Director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra. Professor Shimada is also music director and conductor of the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, music director and conductor of the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes, and principal conductor of the Vienna Modern Masters in Vienna, Austria. Prior to serving as music director of the Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra from 1986 to 2006, he was associate conductor of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Nassau Symphony Orchestra, and music director of the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra at Rice University. Professor Shimada has been a frequent guest conductor of the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra. Recent engagements include the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Filharmónico de Jalisco (Guadalajara, Mexico), Slovak Philharmonic, Tonkünstler Orchestra (Austria), Orchestre National de Lille, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Prague Chamber Orchestra. He has also been a guest conductor with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, San Jose Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Orchestra, Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and many other orchestras in the U.S. and Canada. Maestro Shimada has studied with distinguished conductors Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Herbert Blomstedt, Hans Swarovsky, Sergiu Comissiona, David Whitwell, and Michael Tilson Thomas. He has collaborated with such distinguished artists as Itzhak Perlman, Andre Watts, Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Janos Starker, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Nadjia Salerno-Sonnenberg, ChoLiang Lin, James Galway, and Doc Severinsen. He records with the Naxos, Vienna Modern Masters, Capstone, Albany, and Querstand labels. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the Maine College of Art.
a b o ut yale p h ilharmonia
The Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale is one of America’s foremost music school ensembles. The largest performing group at the Yale School of Music, the Philharmonia offers superb training in orchestral playing and repertoire. Performances include an annual series of concerts in Woolsey Hall, as well as Yale Opera productions in the Shubert Performing Arts Center. The Yale Philharmonia has also performed on numerous occasions in Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York City and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The orchestra undertook its first tour of Asia in 2008, with acclaimed performances in the Seoul Arts Center, the Forbidden City Concert Hall and National Center for the Performing Arts (Beijing), and the Shanghai Grand Theatre.
shinik hahm Conductor philharmonia staff andrew w. parker Manager roberta senatore Music Librarian jonathan brandani Assistant Conductor louis lohraseb Assistant Conductor
The Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale violin 1 Melanie Clapies Dae Hee Ahn Jacob Ashworth Seul-A Lee Xi Liao Avi Chaim Nagin Jinyou Lee Inyoung Hwang Eun Kyung Park Ye Hyung Chung Benjamin Hoffman Jessica Oddie Yena Lee Edouard Maetzener violin 2 Shuaili Du Julia Ghica Hye Jin Koh RyanTruby Do Hyung Kim Jing Yang Mann-Wen Lo Yite Xu Ruda Lee Betty Zhou Matheus Garcia Souza Eun-young Jung Choha Kim viola Ksenia Zhuleva Xinyi Xu Colin Brookes Rebecca Wiebe Hyeree Yu Daniel Stone Yejin Han Isabella Mensz David Mason Batmyagmar Erdenebat Yuan Qi Benjamin Bartelt 1 - Principal on Threnody 2 - Principal on Prokofiev 3 - Principal on Symphony No. 2
cello Alan Ohkubo Zhilin Wang Chang Pan Elisa Rodriguez Sadaba Kimberly Miyoung Jeong Christopher Hwang Yoonha Yi Jia Cao Bora Kim Yifan Wu bass Ha Young Jung Samuel Bobinski Jonathan Hammonds Samuel Suggs Gregory Vartian-Foss Christopher Lettie Andrea Elizabeth Blackert Beyer Noah Colter flute Isabel Lepanto Gleicher 3 Jonathan Slade Victor Wang 2 oboe Kemp Jernigan 3 Fiona Last Hsuan-Fong Chen Sol Jee Park 2 Timothy Gocklin clarinet Kevin Schaffter 3 Joshua Anderson Ashley Smith Chi Hang Fung 2 bassoon Barbara Bentley 3 Bogdan Dumitriu Michael Zuber Marissa Olegario 2 Elizabeth Garrett
horn Thomas Park 3 William Eisenberg Zachary Quortrup Chuta Chulavalaivong Wing Lam Au 2 Patrick Jankowksi trumpet Robert Moser 3 Jean Laurenz Timothy Will Carl Stanley 2 trombone Curtis Biggs 2, 3 Kevin Dombrowski Daniel Fiers Stephen Ivany tuba William Dietz 3 Jens Peterson 2 percussion Jonathan Allen Garrett Arney Douglas Perry Mari Yoshinaga Terrence Sweeney Georgi Videnov celesta Xuerong Zhao
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