Yale Philharmonia, with Ludovic Morlot, guest conductor, October 25, 2019

yale philharmonia

Ludovic Morlot guest conductor

Friday, October 25, 2019 | 7:30 pm Woolsey Hall

Robert Blocker, Dean

Program Claude Debussy 1862–1918

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, L. 86

Karol Maciej Szymanowski 1882–1937

Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 35 I. Vivace assai II. Tempo comod. Andantino III. Vivace scherzando IV. Poco meno. Allegretto V. Vivace (Tempo I) Jung Eun Kang, violin

intermission

Sergei Prokofiev 1891–1953

Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 100 I. Andante II. Allegro marcato III. Adagio IV. Allegro giocoso

Thank you, Yale School of Music alumni, for returning to campus this week and celebrating the School’s 125th anniversary.

As a courtesy to others, please silence all devices. Photography and recording of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please do not leave the hall during musical selections. Thank you.

Artist Profiles Ludovic Morlot, guest conductor Following eight years as Music Director, Ludovic Morlot is now Conductor Emeritus of the Seattle Symphony. Ludovic’s innovative programming encompassed not only his choice of repertoire, but theatrical productions and performances outside the traditional concert hall space. There were numerous collaborations with musicians from different genres, commissions and world premieres. Under Ludovic’s baton, 19 recordings were released under the Seattle Symphony Media label, the orchestra received five Grammy Awards, and was named Gramophone’s 2018 Orchestra of the Year.

This season Ludovic will make his subscription-season debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra and return to the Los Angeles, BBC, Seoul, and Bergen Philharmonic, and Vienna Symphony Orchestras. Ludovic has a strong commitment to working with young musicians and will this season conduct student orchestras at Yale University and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, as well as returning to the Aspen Festival, with whom he has a regular association. In 2019 he led the National Youth Orchestra of China on their European Tour, having conducted their inaugural concerts in New York and China two years earlier.

Ludovic has conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw, Czech Philharmonic, Dresden Staaksapelle, London Philharmonic, Budapest Festival, Tokyo Philharmonic and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras. He has appeared at the BBC Proms, Wien Modern and Edinburgh Festivals. Other recent notable performances

have included the New York Philharmonic, Chicago, Houston, Minnesota and Detroit Symphony Orchestras. Ludovic has a particularly strong connection with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and has conducted the orchestra in subscription concerts in Boston, at Tanglewood and on a tour to the west coast of America.

Ludovic was Chief Conductor of La Monnaie for three years (2012–2014). During this time he conducted several new productions including La Clemenza di Tito, Jenufa, and Pelléas et Mélisande, as well as concert performances in both Brussels and at the Aix-en-Provence Easter Festival.

Trained as a violinist, Ludovic studied conducting at the Pierre Monteux School (USA) and later in London at both the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music. Ludovic is Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington School of Music in Seattle and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2014.

Artist Profiles, cont.

Program Notes

by Rachel Glodo

Jung Eun Kang, violin Violinist Jung Eun Kang is a passionate musician who has appeared on stages across United States and South Korea as a soloist, chamber musician, and an orchestral player.

Jung Eun is a first-year Violin Fellow at the New World Symphony. She currently holds a position with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut.

Born in South Korea, Jung Eun has been the recipient of top prizes at several national competitions including the Sung Jung Competition, 30th Busan Music Competition, and Sejong Arts & Culture Foundation Competition. As a chamber musician, she won the Seoul Young Chamber Music Competition and has performed with renowned artists such as Vadim Repin, Edgar Meyer, Víkingur Ólafsson, and Jörg Widmann through the international Sejong Soloists’ Korea Tour. Last spring, she performed on the opening concert of the Kallos Chamber Music Series with Ole Akahoshi in New Haven, CT. Jung Eun has also attended summer festivals including the String Leadership Program at Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, where she studied with Glenn Dicterow, as well as the Euro Music Festival in Leipzig, Germany. Jung Eun began studying the violin at age 11, at the Music Prodigy Academy of the Seoul Arts Center. She holds a bachelor of music degree from the Seoul National University in South Korea, and master of music and master of musical arts degrees from the Yale School of Music, where she studied under the tutelage of Hyo Kang.

Prélude à L’après-midi d’un faune debussy The plot of Stéphane Mallarmé’s symbolist poem “L’Aprés-midi d’un faune (The Afternoon of a Faun)” cannot be called actionpacked: “Faun awakens. Faun recounts seeing two nymphs. It may or may not have been all a dream.” The poem (translated in part below) is a series of indefinite but connected images that evoke the sensual pastoralism of Greek mythology: These nymphs I would make last.

So rare Their rose lightness arches in the air, Torpid with tufted sleep.

I loved: a dream?

This was precisely the nebulous imagery that most appealed to Claude Debussy, who met Mallarmé in Paris’ salon scene in the 1880s. Like Mallarmé’s work, Debussy’s symphonic poem does not express a clear programmatic narrative. Instead, it uses orchestral and chromatic color to paint contours, suggest hazy images, and invite the listener to join the faun’s dreamworld.

Debussy’s faun awakens to a sinuous flute melody, which returns throughout the piece like the nymphs’ elusive forms glimpsed through the trees.

While Debussy’s Prélude was generally wellreceived at its 1894 premiere, it was not until 1912 that it entered a different type of mythology. Presented by the Ballets Russes with dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky in the title role, the ballet shocked (and delighted) Parisian audiences: Nijinsky’s faun ended his afternoon with an intimate, luxurious orgasm.

Violin Concerto No. 1 szymanowski

Symphony No. 5 Prokofiev

For 19th century listeners, a “concerto” meant a composition for a solo instrument and orchestra that highlighted the soloist’s virtuosity and artistry. It typically unfolded in three movements, each movement with its own prototypical patterns. This was, after all, what made concertos fun: everyone knew the “rules,” and it was exciting to see how a composer would play with and bend these rules. The early 20th century saw rules bent to a breaking point. Established norms — from concert attire to musical forms — were challenged and refashioned.

Like many well-known artists, Prokofiev was shuffled around the Soviet Union during the war years, spending time in the northern Caucasus, Tbilisi (Georgia), Alma-Ata (Almaty, Kazakhstan), and Perm (in the Urals), before returning to Moscow in 1943. Though the Second World War still raged, the tide had turned for the Allied forces. In the summer of 1944, Prokofiev departed war-time Moscow for the state-sponsored “Composer’s House” in rural Ivanovo.

Szymanowski’s First Violin Concerto (1916) exemplifies this tension. For example, the concerto is through-composed—that is, it is presented as a single movement. While there are five identifiable sections, one proceeds after another with a restless energy, without pause.

Szymanowski’s musical language fuses 19th century “Romantic” elements —cantabile violin melodies, a lush orchestral palette, and impassioned melodic sighs — with the traumas of the new century: jagged, sometimes wandering solo lines, anxious flutters from the woodwinds, and above all, perhaps, the final ambiguous whispers of the violin. Wistful and ironic, the concerto’s conclusion is reminiscent of T.S. Eliot’s famous line: “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper” (1925).

Despite the temptation of pastoral beauty and a cohort of fellow composers — including Shostakovich, Khachaturian, and Kabalevsky — Prokofiev maintained a disciplined schedule and produced the piano score of his Fifth Symphony in a single month. (Khachaturian recalled, “The regularity with which he worked amazed us all!”)

The result is a symphonic journey that is simultaneously expansive and tightly designed, suggesting both the shared and private experiences of nations at war. As Prokofiev told Time magazine, a little dryly perhaps, his symphony was “about the spirit of man, his soul or something like that.” Prokofiev conducted the premiere in Moscow on January 13, 1945. As the composer raised his baton, the audience heard a celebratory artillery volley: the Red Army had begun the Vistula-Oder Offensive in Poland, Nazi forces were being pushed westward, and victory was only nine months off.

Yale Philharmonia Roster Peter Oundjian, principal conductor Nivanthi Karunaratne 1 Gabriel Mairson 2 Philharmonia Staff Olivia Martinez Nathan Peebles Manager Jeffrey M. Mistri Flute Trumpet David Lassila 2 Melissa Munoz 3 Assistant Manager Lucas Guedes Oliveira 3 Anthony DiMauro Samuel Bobinski Jungah Yoon 1 Connor Holland Brian Voelz 2 Conducting Fellow Piccolo Ryan Tani Jungah Yoon 2 Trombone Danny Alford Office Assistant Oboe William Karceski 3 Andrew Sledge Elise Conti 2 Lyman McBride 2 Violin II Soo Min Ha 1 Ryan Murray Julia Mirzoev Stage Crew Jillian Honn Elena Kawazu Héloïse Carlean Jones Amelia Merriman Bass Trombone Kate Arndt Gabriel Mairson Laurel Wellman 3 Samuel Anderson 3 Jin Yoon Andrew Sledge Lauren White Jordan Crimminger 2 Lucas Guedes Oliveira Pei Wen Liao Anna Leunis Arlo Shultis English Horn Tuba Dustin Wilkes-Kim Cameron Daly Jillian Honn 2 Aidan Zimmermann Anna Leunis Jisun Lee Amelia Merriman 1 Yiming Mao William Karceski Timpani James Poe Matt Peralta Clarinet Arlo Shultis 3 Michael Fleming Amy Hur Shiqi Zhong 2 Viola Nathan Peebles Juan Martinez 3 Abby Elder Chris Rogers-Beadle Claudia Ng Percussion Alex McLaughlin Seojin Kim César Palacio 1 Russell Fisher Harris Bernstein Tamara Snyder Ziqi Yue 2 Zach Gutierrez Minkyoung Lee David Lassila Jisu Jung Arjun Ganguly Arlo Shultis 1 2 Chris Rogers-Beadle E-flat Clarinet Library Claudia Ng Kevin Zetina James Yoon Alex McLaughlin Shiqi Zhong 3 Rubina Lee Aidan Zimmerman Bass Clarinet Jillian Honn Amy Hur Harp Cello Elise Conti Héloïse Carlean Jones 1 2 Sam Zagnit Josephina Kim Bassoon Violetta Norrie 3 Guilherme Nardelli Claudia Ng Philip McNaughton Monegatto Mateen Milan 3 Piano Megan Yip Molly Murphy Jonathan Tsz Hin Mak Jihyun Hwang Atticus Mellor-Goldman Tamara Snyder 1 2 Celeste Sophie Ssu-Yang Yu Contrabassoon Po-Wei Ger Miriam LiskePhilip McNaughton 3 Doorandish 1 Molly Murphy 2 Principal on Debussy Hye In Lee 2 Principal on Horn Szymanowski Bass 3 Henry Bond Principal on Prokofiev Zhenyuan Yao Griffin Botts 3 Seojin Kim Violin I Hannah Tarley Michael Ferri Jessie Chen Shenae Anderson Charissa Leung Xiaoxuan Shi Erin White Ann Cho Ye Jin Min BingYang Li Yoon Be Kim Wei Zhu

Max Mulpagano Matt Peralta Ross Wightman Sam Zagnit

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Upcoming Events nov 1-2 Fall Opera Scenes

Yale Opera Fully staged performances of excerpts from a variety of scenes from comic and tragic operas.

With piano accompaniment.

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principal conductor

Yale Philharmonia Nighttime is celebrated in a program featuring Debussy’s Nocturnes with the treble voices of the Yale Schola Cantorum, Weber’s Bassoon Concerto, and Scheherazade.

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