BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Santa Rosa Symphony - ECPv6.15.17//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:Santa Rosa Symphony X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.srsymphony.org X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Santa Rosa Symphony REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Los_Angeles BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20230312T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20231105T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20240310T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20241103T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20250309T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20251102T090000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTSTAMP:20260420T030200 CREATED:20210624T221503Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240223T171744Z UID:24869-1705536000-1705536000@www.srsymphony.org SUMMARY:American Rhapsody DESCRIPTION:Health Order C19-35\n\n\n\nRecently Sonoma County issued Health Order C19-35—requiring postponing or canceling large gatherings of more than 50 people indoors where social distancing is not feasible from January 12 through February 11\, 2022. The County has announced this ban will be lifted on February 10\, 2022 at 11:59 PM. American Rhapsody will be performed as planned. Please note: this concert will not be filmed. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nConcert Conversations\n\n\n\nConcert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall. \n\n\n\n\nSaturday\, February 12\, 2022 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\nSunday\, February 13\, 2022 at 2:00 PM\n\n\n\nMonday\, February 14\, 2022 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\n\n2021-2022 Season Brochure\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPlan Your Visit\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series \n \n \n\n Directions & More \n \n \n\n Seating Map \n \n \n\n Before the Concert \n \n \n\n At the Concert \n \n \n\n Dining & Hotels \n \n \n \n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCovid Protocols for this concert\n\n\n\nAges 7 & up; \n\n\n\n\nMasks are required and must cover the mouth and nose at all times.\n\n\n\nPhoto ID is required (not required for children under 12 if accompanied by parent.)\n\n\n\n\nAnd one of the following: \n\n\n\n\nProof of vaccination – name on card must match photo ID.\n\n\n\nNegative COVID PCR test (taken within 48 hours prior to performance) – name on the test results must match photo ID.\n\n\n\n\nNo one will be admitted without a mask\, photo ID and either proof of vaccine or negative COVID-19 PCR test. No exceptions.\n\n\n\nPlease stay home if… \n\n\n\n\nYou are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever\, sore throat\, chills\, cough\, shortness of breath\, congestion\, nausea\, or vomiting.\n\n\n\nYou’ve been in close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms within the past 14 days.\n\n\n\nYou’ve been directed to self-isolate or quarantine by a health care provider or public health official.\n\n\n\nYou are awaiting the results of a COVID-19 PCR test.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWe gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:\n\n\n\nClassical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family Foundation  \n\n\n\nConcerts sponsored by Viking CruisesGuest Artist Michelle Cann underwritten by Willow Creek Wealth Management  Guest Conductor Aram Demirjian underwritten by David and Corinne ByrdDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks Sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard GrundySeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPrograms\, dates\, artist\, prices and COVID-19 protocols are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFebruary 2022 Program Notes by Elizabeth Schwartz\n\n\n\n\nWilliam Grant Still\n Darker America (symphonic poem) for Orchestra COMPOSER: born May 11\, 1895\, Woodville\, Mississippi; died December 3\, 1978\, Los AngelesWORK COMPOSED: 1924WORLD PREMIERE: Eugene Goosens led the first performance at Aeolian Hall in New York on November 22\, 1926INSTRUMENTATION: 2 flutes\, oboe\, English horn\, 2 clarinets\, 2 bassoons\, horn\, trumpet\, trombone\, cymbal\, bass drum\, piano and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 12 minutes Known as “the dean of African American composers\,” William Grant Still composed music in a wide variety of genres: symphonies\, opera\, chamber music\, choral works\, solo songs and concertos. As a young man\, he made his living playing commercial music on violin\, oboe and banjo. Over his six-decade career\, Still worked as a performer\, arranger\, orchestrator\, conductor and composer. \n\n\n\nStill’s childhood and teen years were filled with music. He studied violin and taught himself to play a number of other instruments before graduating high school at 16. Still went on to attend Wilberforce College and Oberlin College\, where he studied composition with George Whitefield Chadwick. During the 1920s\, Still also worked privately with the French modernist composer Edgar Varèse. Under Varèse’s mentorship\, Still met influential musicians and conductors\, had his own works performed and expanded his compositional horizons. \n\n\n\nDarker America\, Still’s first work for orchestra\, introduced the young man to audiences as a composer of formidable ability and intent. In his own detailed program note\, Still wrote\, “Darker America\, as its title suggests\, is representative of the American Negro. His serious side is presented and is intended to suggest the triumph of a people over their sorrows through fervent prayer. At the beginning the theme of the American Negro is announced by the strings in unison. Following a short development of this\, the English horn announces the sorrow theme\, which is followed immediately by the theme of hope\, given to muted brass accompanied by string and woodwind. The sorrow theme returns\, treated differently\, indicative of more intense sorrow as contrasted to passive sorrow indicated at the initial appearance of the theme. Again hope appears and the people seem about to rise above their troubles. But sorrow triumphs. Then the prayer is heard (given to oboe); the prayer of numbed rather than anguished souls. Strongly contrasted moods follow\, leading up to the triumph of the people near the end\, at which point the three principal themes are combined.”  \n\n\n\n\nGeorge Gershwin\nRhapsody in Blue for Piano and Orchestra COMPOSER: born September 26\, 1898\, Brooklyn; died July 11\, 1937\, HollywoodWORK COMPOSED: Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue in the first three weeks of 1924.WORLD PREMIERE: Gershwin was at the piano when Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra premiered Rhapsody in Blue at Aeolian Hall in New York on February 12\, 1924.INSTRUMENTATION: solo piano\, 2 flutes\, 2 oboes\, 2 clarinets\, bass clarinet\, alto saxophone\, tenor saxophone\, 3 horns\, 3 trumpets\, 3 trombones\, tuba\, timpani\, bass drum\, cymbals\, gong\, glockenspiel\, snare drum\, celesta\, triangle\, banjo and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 15 minutes \n\n\n\nRhapsody in Blue occupies a special place in American music: it introduced jazz to classical concert audiences\, and simultaneously made an instant star of its composer. From its iconic opening clarinet glissando\, right through its brilliant finale\, Rhapsody in Blue epitomizes the Gershwin sound\, and transformed the 25-year-old songwriter from Tin Pan Alley into a composer of “serious” music. \n\n\n\nThe story of how Rhapsody in Blue came about is as captivating as the music itself. On January 4\, 1924\, Ira Gershwin showed George a news report in the New York Tribune about a concert put together by jazz bandleader Paul Whiteman\, grandiosely titled “An Experiment in Modern Music\,” that would endeavor to trace the history of jazz. \n\n\n\nThe report concluded with a brief announcement: “George Gershwin is at work on a jazz concerto.” This was certainly news to Gershwin\, who was then in rehearsals for a Broadway show\, Sweet Little Devil. Gershwin contacted Whiteman to refute the Tribune article\, but Whiteman eventually talked Gershwin into writing the concerto. Whiteman also sweetened the deal by offering to have Ferde Grofé do the orchestrations. Gershwin completed Rhapsody in Blue in three weeks\, and was at the piano when Paul Whiteman and his Jazz Orchestra premiered Rhapsody in Blue at Aeolian Hall in New York on February 12\, 1924. \n\n\n\nIn 1931\, Gershwin described to biographer Isaac Goldberg how the ideas for Rhapsody in Blue came to him during a train trip to Boston: “It was on the train\, with its steely rhythms\, its rattle-ty bang\, that is so often so stimulating to a composer – I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise … And there I suddenly heard\, and even saw on paper – the complete construction of the Rhapsody\, from beginning to end … I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America\, of our vast melting pot\, of our unduplicated national pep\, of our metropolitan madness. By the time I reached Boston I had a definite plot of the piece\, as distinguished from its actual substance.” \n\n\n\nAt the premiere\, Gershwin’s unique realization of this “musical kaleidoscope of America\,” coupled with his phenomenal abilities at the keyboard wowed the audience as much as the novelty of hearing jazz idioms in a “classical” work. \n\n\n\nThe original opening clarinet solo\, written by Gershwin\, got its trademark jazzy glissando from Whiteman’s clarinetist Ross Gorman. This opening unleashes a floodgate of colorful ideas that blend seamlessly. The pulsing syncopated rhythms and showy music later give way to a warm\, expansive melody that suggests the lush romanticism of Sergei Rachmaninoff. \n\n\n\n\nFlorence Price\n Concerto in D minor in One Movement for Piano and Orchestra COMPOSER: born April 9\, 1887\, Little Rock\, Arkansas; died June 3\, 1953\, ChicagoWORK COMPOSED: 1932-1934. Dedicated to Helen Armstrong Andrews.WORLD PREMIERE: Frederick Stock led the Chicago Symphony with Price at the piano in 1934INSTRUMENTATION: solo piano\, flute\, oboe\, 2 clarinets\, bassoon\, 2 horns\, 2 trumpets\, 2 trombones\, timpani\, bass drum\, crash cymbals\, snare drum\, suspended cymbal and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 18 minutes The first female African-American composer to earn a national reputation\, and to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra\, Florence Price enjoyed considerable renown during her lifetime. Sadly\, both she and her music dropped into obscurity for decades after her death in 1953\, but in recent years performers and audiences alike have begun to discover her rich legacy. \n\n\n\nThe daughter of a musical mother\, Price was a prodigy\, giving her first recital at age 4 and publishing her first composition at 11. During her childhood and teens\, Price’s mother was the guiding force behind her piano and composition studies. Young Florence entered New England Conservatory in 1903\, at 16\, where she double majored in organ performance and piano pedagogy. While at NEC\, Price also studied composition with George Whitefield Chadwick. Chadwick was an early champion of women as composers\, which was highly unusual at the time\, and he believed that American composers should incorporate the rich traditions of Native American and “Negro” styles in their own works. Price\, already inclined in this direction\, was encouraged by Chadwick\, and many of her works reflect the expressive and distinctive sounds of “Negro” traditions: spirituals\, ragtime and folkdance rhythms\, whose origins trace back to Africa. \n\n\n\nIn 1933\, Frederick Stock\, conductor of the Chicago Symphony\, programmed Price’s Symphony in E minor\, on a concert titled “The Negro in Music\,” which was performed in conjunction with the Chicago World’s Fair. The following year\, Stock asked Price to write a piano concerto\, which she premiered with him and the Chicago Symphony in 1934. \n\n\n\nPrice’s musical style combines European late-Romantic aesthetics with folk and popular music from the African-American tradition. The single movement of the concerto features three sections performed without breaks. It begins with slow introduction and a rhapsodic folk-like theme\, in which the piano executes both the main melody and a dizzying display of virtuosic elaborations. In the quieter central section\, we hear a more intimate facet of Price’s voice. The tonality shifts to D major; the piano presents a theme redolent of both blues and gospel hymns\, while the orchestra provides understated accompaniment. The closing section features a juba\, an up-tempo folk dance with strong ragtime elements\, including a powerful left-hand stride piano bass line. \n\n\n\n\nAaron Copland\n Appalachian Spring (complete ballet) for Orchestra COMPOSER: born November 14\, 1900\, Brooklyn; died December 2\, 1990\, North Tarrytown\, New YorkWORK COMPOSED: 1943-1944. Copland won a Pulitzer Prize for the ballet score in 1945. Dedicated to Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge.WORLD PREMIERE: Copland conducted the premiere of the ballet at the Library of Congress in Washington\, D.C. on October 30\, 1944\, the birthday of arts patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge.Instrumentation: 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo)\, 2 oboes\, 2 clarinets\, 2 bassoons\, 2 horns\, 2 trumpets\, 2 trombones\, timpani\, bass drum\, claves\, cymbal\, glockenspiel\, orchestra bells\, snare drum\, tabor\, triangle\, wood bloc\, xylophone\, piano\, harp and strings.Estimated duration: 35 minutes Shortly before the debut of Ballet for Martha\, Aaron Copland’s working title for the ballet Martha Graham had commissioned from him\, the choreographer announced she had decided on the name Appalachian Spring. Graham\, who borrowed the words from Hart Crane’s poem\, The Dance\, admitted she had chosen it simply because she liked the sound of the words together. The spring in Crane’s poem is a mountain creek\, but Graham seems to have understood it to mean the season of spring\, as she explained in her brief description of the ballet’s narrative: “Part and parcel of our lives is that moment of Pennsylvania spring when there was ‘a garden eastward of Eden.’ Spring was celebrated by a man and woman building a house with joy and love and prayer; by a revivalist and his followers in their shouts of exaltation; by a pioneering woman with her dreams of the Promised Land.” \n\n\n\n“Over and over again\,” Copland recalled in 1981\, “people come up to me after seeing the ballet on stage and say\, ‘Mr. Copland\, when I see that ballet and when I hear your music I can just see the Appalachians and I just feel spring.’ Well\, I’m willing if they are!” \n\n\n\nIn Appalachian Spring\, Copland’s interest in folk melodies and idioms reaches its zenith. The Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts\,” which Copland discovered in a 1940 book on Shaker culture\, and the celebratory variations of its melody\, form the climax of Appalachian Spring. As scholar William Brooks notes\, “In this context the Shaker melody came to serve as a kind of paradigm for the simplicity and authenticity of frontier America: mythical music for a mythical past.” In similar fashion\, Copland’s music\, particularly Appalachian Spring\, became the paradigm for the “American” sound of the mid-20th century. \n\n\n\nCopland explained his musical conception: “When I wrote Appalachian Spring\, I was thinking primarily about Martha and her unique choreographic style\, which I knew well.  Nobody else seems quite like Martha: she’s so proud\, so very much herself.  And she’s unquestionably very American: there something prim and restrained\, simple yet strong about her\, which one tends to think of as American.” \n\n\n\nEdwin Denby\, a noted dance critic\, provided program notes: “A pioneer celebration in spring around a newly-built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the last century. The bride-to-be and the young farmer-husband enact the emotions\, joyful and apprehensive\, that their new domestic partnership invites. An older neighbor suggests now and then the rocky confidence of experience. A revivalist and his followers remind the new householders of the strange and terrible aspects of human fate. At the end the couple are left quiet and strong in their new house.”  \n\n\n\n\n\n© 2022 Elizabeth SchwartzElizabeth Schwartz is a writer and music historian based in the Portland area. She has been a program annotator for more than 20 years\, and works with music festivals and ensembles around the country. Ms. Schwartz has also contributed to NPR’s “Performance Today” (now heard on American Public Media). NOTE: These program notes are for Santa Rosa Symphony patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author\, who may be contacted atclassicalmusicprogramnotes.com. URL:https://www.srsymphony.org/event/american-rhapsody/ CATEGORIES:Classical Series END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTSTAMP:20260420T030200 CREATED:20210624T220109Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240119T221702Z UID:24868-1705536000-1705536000@www.srsymphony.org SUMMARY:Beethoven a la Kern DESCRIPTION:Concert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong\n\n\n\nDue to an abundance of caution\, the pre-concert talk has been cancelled for this concert weekend. \n\n\n\n2021-2022 Season Brochure\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPlan Your Visit\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series \n \n \n\n Directions & More \n \n \n\n Seating Map \n \n \n\n Before the Concert \n \n \n\n At the Concert \n \n \n\n Dining & Hotels \n \n \n \n \n \n\n\n\nCovid Protocols for this concert\n\n\n\nAges 7-11: \n\n\n\n\nMasks are required. Must cover nose and mouth at all times.\n\n\n\nNegative COVID PCR test (taken within 48 hours prior to performance).\n\n\n\n​Photo ID is required unless accompanied by parent.\n\n\n\n\nAges 12 & up; \n\n\n\n\nMasks are required. Must cover nose and mouth at all times.\n\n\n\nPhoto ID is required\n\n\n\n\nAnd one of the following: \n\n\n\n\nProof of vaccination – name on card must match photo ID.\n\n\n\nNegative COVID PCR test (taken within 48 hours prior to performance) – name on the test results must match photo ID.\n\n\n\n\nNo one will be admitted without a mask\, photo ID and either proof of vaccine or negative COVID-19 PCR test. No exceptions.\n\n\n\nPlease stay home if… \n\n\n\n\nYou are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever\, sore throat\, chills\, cough\, shortness of breath\, congestion\, nausea\, or vomiting.\n\n\n\nYou’ve been in close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms within the past 14 days.\n\n\n\nYou’ve been directed to self-isolate or quarantine by a health care provider or public health official.\n\n\n\nYou are awaiting the results of a COVID-19 PCR test.\n\n\n\n\nFor more information about COVID-19 protocols\, please click here.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWe gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:\n\n\n\nClassical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family Foundation \n\n\n\nConcerts sponsored by Judith M. GappaConductor Francesco Lecce-Chong underwritten by David and Corinne ByrdGuest Artist Olga Kern underwritten by Sara and Edward KozelWorld Premiere underwritten by First Symphony Project commissioners: Nancy and David Berto\, Gordon Blumenfeld\, Chuck and Ellen Wear\, Creighton White in loving memory of Dorothy Bristow White\, and Chloe Tula and Francesco Lecce-ChongWorld Premiere Supporting Sponsor: Women’s Philharmonic AdvocacyDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks Sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard GrundySeason media sponsor: The Press Democrat \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPrograms\, dates\, artist\, prices and COVID-19 protocols are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.\n\n\n\nJanuary 2022 Program Notes by Elizabeth Schwartz \n\n\n\n\nRichard Wagner\n RICHARD WAGNERLohengrin: Prelude to Act 1\, WWV 75       COMPOSER: born May 22\, 1813\, Leipzig; died February 13\, 1883\, VeniceWORK COMPOSED: 1848WORLD PREMIERE: Franz Liszt premiered Lohengrin in Weimar on August 28\, 1856.INSTRUMENTATION: 3 flutes\, 2 oboes\, English horn\, 2 clarinets\, bass clarinet\, 3 bassoons\, 4 horns\, 3 trumpets\, 3 trombones\, tuba\, timpani\, cymbals and divisi strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 10 minutes Today Richard Wagner is considered one of the most influential composers of the 19th century\, but during his lifetime he did not enjoy such universal esteem. At the time he conceived and wrote Lohengrin\, for example\, Wagner’s reputation was at a low ebb. Wagner’s rapidly-evolving music and aesthetic ideas were too new and unusual for mid-19th-century audiences to comprehend or appreciate. Thus\, when Wagner completed Lohengrin\, he could not convince anyone to publish it or mount a production. In despair\, Wagner wrote to Franz Liszt\, head of the Weimar Opera\, asking him to conduct the opening production of Lohengrin. Wagner hoped that Liszt’s strong reputation would lend credibility to Lohengrin and win audiences over. Wagner proved prescient; the mere fact that Liszt took on Lohengrin elevated its importance in the eyes of many\, and both audiences and critics were favorably impressed with what they heard. After its premiere\, Liszt wrote to Wagner\, “The public interest in Lohengrin is rapidly increasing. You are already very popular at the various Weimar hotels\, where it is not easy to get a room on the days when your operas are given.” \n\n\n\nLohengrin is Wagner’s last opera written in the 19th-century Romantic style; all his later works came to be known as “music dramas.” Wagner was much concerned with the relationship of music to literature\, and believed the two must combine to form a new genre. In his 1850-1851 book\, Oper und Drama (Opera and Drama)\, Wagner laid out his ideas for this new and singularly distinct genre\, one he hoped would displace conventional operas with their frivolous plots and emphasis on recitatives and arias. According to Encyclopedia Britannica\, “This new type of work was intended as a return to the Greek drama as Wagner understood it – the public expression of national human aspirations in symbolic form by enacting racial myths and using music for the full expression of the dramatic action.” All words would be sung\, rather than mixing spoken and sung text; arias would not be the focus of the music or narrative\, nor would they serve as vehicles to show off the singers’ virtuosity; libretto and music would be created by one person\, rather than two or more\, to insure unity between dramatic and musical concepts; short\, distinctive musical fragments would be assigned to each of the characters\, and these would sound each time the character appeared or was the focus of the narrative. \n\n\n\nAlthough Lohengrin is not technically a music drama\, several elements of its construction foreshadow Wagner’s mature style found in later works such as the Ring Cycle. Beginning with Lohengrin\, Wagner wrote his own libretto. We can also hear the evolution of Wagner’s concept of leitmotif\, the association of characters with specific themes and musical keys. Although Wagner did not apply the term leitmotif to Lohengrin\, the beginnings of the idea are evident in the music. \n\n\n\nThe Prelude to Act I presents one of these proto-leitmotifs\, the theme of the Holy Grail\, which features – atypically for Wagner – a restrained\, almost Minimalist quality. In the opera\, Lohengrin is a knight who lives in the Temple of the Holy Grail with his father Parsifal. Elsa\, unjustly accused of murdering her brother\, dreams of a knight who will come to her defense. Her prayers summon Lohengrin\, who arrives in a swan boat. Lohengrin jousts with Elsa’s accuser\, Telramund\, and defeats him\, thus proving Elsa’s innocence. \n\n\n\nWagner splits the violin sections into eight parts\, all of which play in an extremely high register. These divisi violins present the delicate ethereal music of the Grail\, the mythical cup into which the blood of Jesus flowed while he was on the Cross. The music expresses both Elsa’s star-crossed love for Lohengrin (and his for her)\, as well as the exquisitely unattainable perfection of the Grail. \n\n\n\n\nGabriella Smith\nONE for Orchestra COMPOSER: born December 26\, 1991\, Berkeley\, CaliforniaWORK COMPOSED: 2021WORLD PREMIERE: January 8-10\, 2022 by the Santa Rosa Symphony\, under the direction of Francesco Lecce-Chong\, at the Green Music Center’s Weill Hall in Rohnert Park\, CaliforniaWORK COMMISSIONED: First Symphony Project donors from the Santa Rosa and Eugene symphoniesINSTRUMENTATION: 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo)\, 3 oboes (1 doubling English horn)\, 3 clarinets (1 doubling bass clarinet)\, 2 bassoons\, contrabassoon\, 4 horns\, 3 trumpets\, 2 trombones\, bass trombone\, tuba\, timpani\, bass drum\, 2 suspended cymbals\, glockenspiel\, marimba\, 3 resonant metal objects pitched in F\, several metal objects with varying degrees of resonance\, tala wands (or hot rods)\, vibraphone and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 30 minutes Composer/environmentalist Gabriella Smith has made an international name for herself with music hailed by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “high-voltage and wildly imaginative.” Clive Paget\, writing for Musical America\, declares Smith possesses “the coolest\, most exciting\, most inventive new voice I’ve heard in ages.”  \n\n\n\nIn June 2021\, Smith released her first full-length album\, Lost Coast\, with cellist Gabriel Cabezas. The Santa Rosa Symphony performed her 2016 work\, Rust\, on its October 2021 concert. \n\n\n\nIn a recent interview\, Smith expressed her gratitude for Music Director Francisco Lecce-Chong’s First Symphony Project\, which has afforded her the rare chance to write a large-scale multi-movement orchestral work that will be performed by the Santa Rosa and Eugene symphonies. “It’s challenging to get a commission for an orchestra piece generally\,” she explains. “I’ve never had the opportunity to write a symphony before.” \n\n\n\nSmith originally planned to write one large movement “because I like building big arcs\,” but as the work proceeded\, “the idea of four movements started to appeal to me more.” Structurally\, ONE is similar to a typical 19th-century symphony; the opening and closing movements are large and expansive. Smith has also included a slow movement and “a kind of scherzo\,” which references the scherzo from Beethoven’s Eroica. \n\n\n\n“I really like the Eroica and the energy of that movement\,” Smith explains. “My third movement takes the character of Beethoven’s scherzo and makes it even more manic; the music distorts and comes back to it constantly throughout.” \n\n\n\nNods to Beethoven and symphonic architecture notwithstanding\, the sound of this music is wholly Smith’s own. “I like the idea of constantly playing with references to older forms while also being new.”A decidedly “new” component of ONE is the list of unconventional percussion instruments Smith requires. In the score\, she calls for “metal objects with varying degrees of resonance\,” and encourages players to be creative. A suggested list includes metal mixing bowls\, pots\, pans\, lids\, cheese graters\, metal water bottles\, machine parts or tin cans. \n\n\n\n“This piece is called ONE\, which is both a reference to Symphony No. 1\, but also the culmination of a lot of what I spent time thinking about last summer\,” says Smith. “The title is a reminder that we humans are only one of millions of species on this planet – each of which plays an important role in the functioning of a healthy ecosystem – and we need to come together as one in order to fix the imbalance humans have created. We forget that we’re only one part of this amazing ecosystem. It’s about the whole and all the parts and how they interact. When I think about the connection between environmentalism and my music\, the orchestra itself is a good metaphor.“This piece is about climate change and climate solutions\, but I wanted to write something that was about getting excited about being involved in the climate movement and the climate solutions\,” Smith continues. “I wanted to bring the joy of environmentalism to the music\, not the despair.” \n\n\n\nWhile Smith’s music is inspired by environmental concerns\, it is not programmatic; there are no depictions of storms or floods or fires. “I write emotions rather than specific ideas of environmentalism in my music\,” says Smith. \n\n\n\nSince the music evokes emotional states rather than specific images\, each listener will experience the music differently. “Listening can be so personal; it becomes about the listener’s journey rather than the composer’s intent. I’d like people to take away the bigger concept\, rather than a specific moment.” \n\n\n\n\nLudwig Van Beethoven\nConcerto No. 5 in E-flat major for Piano and Orchestra\, Opus 73\, Emperor COMPOSER: born December 16\, 1770\, Bonn; died March 26\, 1827\, ViennaWORK COMPOSED: 1809. Dedicated to Beethoven’s patron and student\, Archduke Rudolph.WORLD PREMIERE: Johann Philipp Christian Schulz led the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig on Nov. 28\, 1811\, with Friedrich Schneider at the piano.INSTRUMENTATION: solo piano\, 2 flutes\, 2 oboes\, 2 clarinets\, 2 bassoons\, 2 horns\, 2 trumpets\, timpani and strings.ESTIMATED DURATION: 38 minutes In May 1809\, Napoleon’s troops attacked the city of Vienna\, and throughout the following summer\, the city shook with mortar fire. Ludwig van Beethoven\, whose hearing was severely impaired\, suffered both the stress of living under attack and constant painful assaults on his ears. In July\, he wrote his publisher\, “Since May 4th I have produced very little coherent work\, at most a fragment here and there. The whole course of events has in my case affected both body and soul … What a destructive\, disorderly life I see and hear around me: nothing but drums\, cannons\, and human misery in every form.” Despite the traumatic conditions\, Beethoven continued to compose\, producing what is arguably the most popular piano concerto ever written. \n\n\n\nIt is not clear how “Emperor” came to be associated with Beethoven’s final piano concerto\, although there is an apocryphal story about a French officer who\, upon hearing the work performed in Vienna in 1812\, exclaimed\, “C’est l’Empereur!” If\, as many have assumed\, the emperor in question refers to Napoleon\, Beethoven\, suffering under Napoleon’s continuous bombardment\, would certainly have disapproved. \n\n\n\nBy this point in his compositional career\, Beethoven’s penchant for innovation in the opening measures of his concertos had become a signature\, and the Fifth is no exception. After an introductory orchestral chord\, the piano enters with a cadenza. Cadenzas\, unaccompanied virtuoso passages filled with scales and trills created from fragments of thematic material\, usually appear at the close of a movement. By opening the concerto with a cadenza full of musical foreshadowing\, Beethoven telegraphs the themes and ideas of the opening movement to the listener. The seamlessness of the opening movement gives listeners a sense of inevitability\, as if the music could unfold in no other way. This semi-subversive cadenza acts as a subliminal suggestion\, planting the basic elements of later themes in our ears without our noticing. \n\n\n\nIn the Adagio un poco mosso\, listeners may recognize the opening notes of Leonard Bernstein’s song Somewhere from West Side Story. We can picture Beethoven\, surrounded by aural and emotional chaos\, escaping from the turmoil of his surroundings into an ethereal sound world. All too soon Beethoven brings us back to earth as the whole orchestra drops down a half-step\, from B to B-flat; it sustains that note while the piano storms into the Rondo with renewed vigor. Piano and orchestra execute a series of variations on this theme\, each more elaborate than the next. The playful\, humorous aspects of Beethoven’s personality reveal themselves here in the “false ending\,” abrupt key changes and generally buoyant mood throughout. \n\n\n\nIn the review of its premiere\, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung reported that “[the audience] could hardly content itself with the ordinary expressions of recognition” in their excitement at hearing Beethoven’s greatest piano concerto.   \n\n\n\n\n\n© 2022 Elizabeth Schwartz Elizabeth Schwartz is a writer and music historian based in the Portland area. She has been a program annotator for more than 20 years\, and works with music festivals and ensembles around the country. Schwartz has also contributed to NPR’s “Performance Today\,” (now heard on American Public Media). NOTE: These program notes are for Santa Rosa Symphony patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author\, who may be contacted at classicalmusicprogramnotes.com. URL:https://www.srsymphony.org/event/beethoven-a-la-kern/ CATEGORIES:Classical Series END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTSTAMP:20260420T030200 CREATED:20210624T213655Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240119T221617Z UID:24867-1705536000-1705536000@www.srsymphony.org SUMMARY:Showcasing Our Own DESCRIPTION:Concert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong\n\n\n\nConcert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall. \n\n\n\n\nSaturday\, December 4\, 2021 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\nSunday\, December 5\, 2021 at 2:00 PM\n\n\n\nMonday\, December 6\, 2021 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\n\n2021-2022 Season Brochure\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPlan Your Visit\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series \n \n \n\n Directions & More \n \n \n\n Seating Map \n \n \n\n Before the Concert \n \n \n\n At the Concert \n \n \n\n Dining & Hotels \n \n \n \n \n \n\n\n\nCovid Protocols for this concert\n\n\n\nAges 7-11: \n\n\n\n\nMasks are required\n\n\n\nNegative COVID PCR test (taken within 72 hours prior to performance).\n\n\n\n​Photo ID is required unless accompanied by parent.\n\n\n\n\nAges 12 & up; \n\n\n\n\nMasks are required \n\n\n\nPhoto ID is required\n\n\n\n\nAnd one of the following: \n\n\n\n\nProof of vaccination – name on card must match photo ID.\n\n\n\nNegative COVID PCR test (taken within 72 hours prior to performance) – name on the test results must match photo ID.\n\n\n\n\nNo one will be admitted without a mask\, photo ID and either proof of vaccine or negative COVID-19 PCR test. No exceptions.\n\n\n\nPlease stay home if… \n\n\n\n\nYou are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever\, sore throat\, chills\, cough\, shortness of breath\, congestion\, nausea\, or vomiting.\n\n\n\nYou’ve been in close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms within the past 14 days.\n\n\n\nYou’ve been directed to self-isolate or quarantine by a health care provider or public health official.\n\n\n\nYou are awaiting the results of a COVID-19 PCR test.\n\n\n\n\nFor more information about COVID-19 protocols\, please click here.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWe gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:\n\n\n\nClassical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family Foundation \n\n\n\nConcerts sponsored by Jim Lamb                                                      Conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong underwritten by David and Corinne ByrdGuest Artist Kathleen Lane Reynolds underwritten by Dr. Larry Schoenrock Endowment FundGuest Artist Laura Reynolds underwritten by Karen Brodsky and Mark DierkhisingGuest Artist Carla Wilson underwritten by Gregory SprehnGuest Artist Roy Zajac underwritten by Chuck and Ellen WearSRS@Home Series underwritten by Gregory SprehnDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-concert Talks sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard GrundySeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPrograms\, dates\, artist\, prices and COVID-19 protocols are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.\n\n\n\nPhoto of Francesco Lecce-Chong by Susan and Neil Silverman PhotographyPhoto of Roy Zajac by Colin Talcroft \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProgram Notes by Elizabeth Schwartz\n\n\n\n\nRalph Vaughan Williams\nFantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis for Orchestra COMPOSER: born October 12\, 1872\, Down Ampney\, England; died August 26\, 1958\, LondonWORK COMPOSED: 1910; rev. 1913\, 1919WORLD PREMIERE: Vaughan Williams conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the premiere performance at Gloucester Cathedral on September 6\, 1910\, for the Three Choirs FestivalINSTRUMENTATION: Two string orchestras of unequal size\, the first consisting of approximately 40 players\, including a solo string quartet. The second orchestra is more like an expanded string quartet\, with 2 first violins\, 2 second violins\, 2 violas\, 2 cellos and a double bass. Vaughan Williams also specified in his score that the second orchestra should be physically separate from the first and from the solo quartet.ESTIMATED DURATION: 17 minutes In 1906\, Ralph Vaughan Williams was asked by Percy Dearmer\, secretary of the London branch of the Christian Social Union\, to undertake a revision of the Anglican hymnal. A life-long atheist\, Vaughan Williams was startled by this invitation but nonetheless agreed. During this time\, Vaughan Williams was also developing an interest in the English musical tradition\, and he knew the best examples of this tradition lay in the wealth of English folk and religious music. Dearmer assured Vaughan Williams the job would take about two months and would probably only cost him a few pounds in expenses. In reality\, Vaughan Williams spent over two years and 250 pounds – a considerable amount of money in early 20th-century England – before the revised hymnal was completed. \n\n\n\nDespite the length and expense of the assignment\, Vaughan Williams considered it time and money well spent. As a young composer\, he had studied composition with Max Bruch and Maurice Ravel\, from whom he learned valuable compositional techniques. However\, Vaughan Williams realized he would need to develop his own musical language if he were ever to be successful. He remarked\, “I know now that two years of close association with some of the best (as well as some of the worst) tunes in the world was a better musical education than any amount of sonatas and fugues.” \n\n\n\nAs he worked on the hymnal\, Vaughan Williams discovered Renaissance composer and organist Thomas Tallis’ setting of “When Rising from the Bed of Death.” Vaughan Williams was taken by the gentle lyricism and quiet melancholy of the music\, and used its main themes to craft his own set of variations. These Variations became the first of Vaughan Williams’ works to definitively establish him as a composer with a unique voice. Critics and audiences warmed to the unusual modal sonorities of the music and its rich expansiveness. At its premiere\, the London Times music critic wrote\, “The work is wonderful because it seems to lift one into some unknown region of musical thought and feeling … one is never sure whether one is listening to something very old or very new … it cannot be assigned to a time or a school\, but it is full of visions.”  \n\n\n\n\nPaul Hindemith\nConcerto for Flute\, Oboe\, Clarinet\, Bassoon\, Harp and Orchestra COMPOSER: born November 16\, 1895\, Hanau\, near Frankfurt; died December 28\, 1963\, FrankfurtWORK COMPOSED: 1949. Commissioned by the Alice M. Ditson Fund at Columbia University in New York for the fifth annual Festival of Contemporary American Music.WORLD PREMIERE: Thor Johnson led the CBS Symphony Orchestra on May 15\, 1949\, at Columbia UniversityINSTRUMENTATION: solo flute\, solo oboe\, solo clarinet\, solo bassoon\, solo harp\, 2 horns\, 2 trumpets\, solo trombone\, timpani and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 15 minutes Paul Hindemith had an unusual ambition: to write a solo concerto for every instrument in the orchestra. The overall lack of concertos for non-traditional solo instruments provided an opportunity for Hindemith to create concerto literature for these often-overlooked instruments. Hindemith eventually completed concertos for violin\, viola\, cello\, clarinet\, horn\, trumpet\, organ and piano\, as well as a concerto for full orchestra and several concerto grosso works for small ensembles (woodwinds and brass)\, with chamber orchestra. \n\n\n\nHindemith pursued several successful musical careers. He was an excellent violist\, and as a young man supported himself with orchestra section work and extensive concert tours. He was also a noted pedagogue who taught at Berlin’s prestigious Hochschule für Musik. Hindemith and his wife fled Germany in the late 1930s and eventually came to America\, where he taught at several universities\, most notably Yale and Cornell. Hindemith’s students at Yale included Lukas Foss\, Norman Dello Joio and Mitch Leigh\, among many others. \n\n\n\nFor most of his musical life\, Hindemith championed the concept of Gebrauchsmusik (utility music). The term has several meanings\, including music written for a specific purpose or occasion\, and music written for talented amateurs rather than virtuosos. At the root of this meaning is the belief that making music should be an inclusive activity\, rather than something only for top-level professional musicians. To this end\, Hindemith’s style of Gebrauchsmusik incorporates old genres (like the Baroque concerto grosso) with clear contrapuntal writing and the harmonic language of his own time. \n\n\n\nHindemith’s Concerto for Flute\, Oboe\, Clarinet\, Bassoon\, Harp and Strings exemplifies this style. As with Baroque versions of the concerto grosso\, Hindemith features a small group of soloists who play with – and sometimes against – the full orchestra. \n\n\n\nWhen Hindemith found out the Festival of Contemporary American Music coincided with his 25th wedding anniversary\, he asked that the premiere take place on May 15\, the exact date. As a surprise for his wife Gertrude\, Hindemith based the third movement on the opening phrase of Mendelssohn’s famous “Wedding March” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Throughout the brief final movement\, we hear this delightful musical homage\, first in the clarinet and later in other instruments.  \n\n\n\n\nDmitri Shostakovich\nSymphony No. 5 in D minor\, Opus 47 \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nCOMPOSER: born September 25\, 1906\, St. Petersburg\, Russia; died August 9\, 1975\, Moscow\, U.S.S.R.WORK COMPOSED: Shostakovich began writing his fifth symphony on April 18\, 1937\, and finished it on July 20 of that yearWORLD PREMIERE: Yevgeny Mravinsky led the Leningrad Philharmonic on November 21\, 1937\, in Leningrad\, as part of a concert commemorating the Bolshevik RevolutionINSTRUMENTATION: piccolo\, 2 flutes\, 2 oboes\, 2 clarinets\, E-flat clarinet\, 2 bassoons\, contrabassoon\, 4 horns\, 3 trumpets\, 3 trombones\, tuba\, timpani\, bass drum\, cymbals\, orchestra bells\, snare drum\, tambourine\, tam-tam\, triangle\, xylophone\, celeste\, piano\, 2 harps and stringsESTIMATED DURATION: 46 minutes \n\n\n\nEveryone in the concert hall in Leningrad on that chilly night in November 1937 knew that Dmitri Shostakovich’s artistic reputation\, and very possibly his life\, were on the line. They were there to hear the premiere of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Before the night was over\, they also witnessed the dramatic rehabilitation of Shostakovich as the Soviet Union’s preeminent composer. \n\n\n\nEarlier in the decade\, Shostakovich had been fêted as the darling of Soviet cultural critics\, but in 1936 the Soviet newspaper Pravda published a vicious denunciation of Shostakovich’s opera\, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Shostakovich’s response to the Pravda review was to immediately withdraw his Fourth Symphony\, which he was then rehearsing. (He did not perform it in public until 1961\, eight years after Joseph Stalin’s death.) This was not an overreaction; Shostakovich had many friends and associates who were “disappeared” or executed for reasons far less public. Any response Shostakovich made to his critics had to be meticulously planned\, lest he suffer the same fate. With his Fifth Symphony\, which a reviewer famously called a “Soviet artist’s response to just criticism\,” Shostakovich both mollified government critics and simultaneously reasserted his artistic integrity. \n\n\n\nAlthough the Fifth Symphony is an “absolute” piece of music (i.e.\, there is no extra-musical story or narrative attached to it)\, Shostakovich did include a brief description of “a lengthy spiritual battle\, crowned by victory” in the program notes. The Moderato sets the tone for that “spiritual battle\,” beginning with the strings’ menacing theme. Its dotted rhythms suggest a bitter march toward an implacable foe. Later\, the violins introduce a lyrical second theme\, in contrast to the angular rhythmic quality of the first. \n\n\n\nThe playful Allegretto juxtaposes frisky winds with stentorian brasses. In the trio section a solo violin teases and flirts\, before being interrupted by the full orchestra\, which transforms the violin’s merry tune into a pompous\, galumphing parody of itself. A whiff of something grotesque permeates this music.The Largo is the emotional core of the Fifth Symphony\, and its power lies in its poignant melodies. Here Shostakovich gives the brass section a rest and showcases other instruments: first strings\, then a solo flute and finally the full orchestra\, sans brasses. Wistful cries from the oboe\, a sobbing upwelling of notes from the clarinet and a brief comment from the flute follow before the whole orchestra comes together\, amidst quivering string tremolos\, in heart-wrenching sadness. \n\n\n\nThe Allegro non troppo opens with a firestorm\, announced by pounding timpani and a blazing brass fanfare. Shostakovich returns to this theme again and again\, and unleashes his seemingly endless power of invention with defiant abandon. In a quiet interlude that directly precedes the coda\, Shostakovich quotes a song in the violins (later in the harp) that he set to words of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin: “And the waverings pass away / From my tormented soul / As a new and brighter day / Brings visions of pure gold.” Despite this quotation and the blast of brassy triumph that ends the Fifth Symphony\, Shostakovich\, perhaps enigmatically\, called the conclusion an “irreparable tragedy.”At the end of the premiere\, a member of the audience remembered: “The whole audience leapt to their feet and erupted into wild applause – a demonstration of their outrage at all the hounding poor Mitya had been through. Everyone kept saying the same thing: ‘That was his answer\, and it was a good one.’ [Shostakovich] came out white as a sheet\, biting his lips. I think he was close to tears.” \n\n\n\nThe Fifth Symphony also succeeded as a musical work\, despite negative responses from some critics who saw it as a musical capitulation to the restrictions placed on artists’ works\, or a shameful compromise by a world-class composer with the dictatorial political system in which he worked. Pravda\, unsurprisingly\, termed it “a farrago of chaotic nonsensical sounds.” However\, audiences both within and outside the Soviet Union hailed the Fifth Symphony as a masterpiece\, and it has become Shostakovich’s most popular and most frequently performed symphony.  \n\n\n\n\n\n© Elizabeth Schwartz URL:https://www.srsymphony.org/event/showcasing-our-own/ CATEGORIES:Classical Series END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTSTAMP:20260420T030200 CREATED:20210624T210154Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240209T025244Z UID:24866-1705536000-1705536000@www.srsymphony.org SUMMARY:Klezmer & Krakauer DESCRIPTION:Concert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong\n\n\n\nConcert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall. \n\n\n\n\nSaturday\, November 6\, 2021 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\n Sunday\, November 7\, 2021 at 2:00 PM\n\n\n\n Monday\, November 8\, 2021 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\n\n2021-2022 Season Brochure\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPlan Your Visit\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series \n \n \n\n Directions & More \n \n \n\n Seating Map \n \n \n\n Before the Concert \n \n \n\n At the Concert \n \n \n\n Dining & Hotels \n \n \n \n \n \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\nCovid Protocols for this concert\n\n\n\nAges 7-11: \n\n\n\n\nMasks are required\n\n\n\nNegative COVID PCR test (taken within 72 hours prior to performance).\n\n\n\nPhoto ID is required unless accompanied by parent.\n\n\n\n\nAges 12 & up; \n\n\n\n\nMasks are required \n\n\n\nPhoto ID is required\n\n\n\n\nAnd one of the following: \n\n\n\n\nProof of vaccination – name on card must match photo ID.\n\n\n\nNegative COVID PCR test (taken within 72 hours prior to performance) – name on the test results must match photo ID.\n\n\n\n\nNo one will be admitted without a mask\, photo ID and either proof of vaccine or negative COVID-19 PCR test. No exceptions.\n\n\n\n\nPlease stay home if… \n\n\n\n\nYou are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever\, sore throat\, chills\, cough\, shortness of breath\, congestion\, nausea\, or vomiting.\n\n\n\nYou’ve been in close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms within the past 14 days.\n\n\n\nYou’ve been directed to self-isolate or quarantine by a health care provider or public health official.\n\n\n\nYou are awaiting the results of a COVID-19 PCR test.\n\n\n\n\n   \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWe gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:\n\n\n\nClassical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family Foundation  \n\n\n\nConcerts sponsored by The Peggy Anne Covington Fund\nConductor Francesco Lecce-Chong underwritten by David and Corinne Byrd\nGuest Artist David Krakauer underwritten by Sigmund Anderman\, in memory of Susan Anderman\nThe Fretless Clarinet: Concerto for Klezmer and Orchestra co-commissioned by the Santa Rosa Symphony\, the Eugene Symphony and the Adele and John Gray Endowment Fund\nwith additional support from Karen Brodsky & Mark Dierkhising\nSRS@Home Series underwritten by Gregory Sprehn\nDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek Vineyard\nPre-concert Talks sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard Grundy\nSeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPrograms\, dates\, artist\, prices and COVID-19 protocols are subject to change without notice. Tickets are subject to availability.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProgram Notes by Elizabeth Schwartz\n\n\n\n\n David Krakauer\, Arranger\nTraditional Klezmer melodies arranged for Clarinet and Orchestra   Klezmer is the traditional secular music of Ashkenazic Jews (Jews who trace their ancestry to Eastern Europe). This swinging\, swaggering\, virtuosic\, improvisatory and deeply emotional instrumental music was an essential accompaniment for Jewish celebrations throughout the shtetls of Europe. Stylistically\, klezmer combines the cantorial chanting of synagogue music and non-Jewish Eastern European folk traditions\, particularly those of Romania\, Ukraine\, Poland\, Russia and the Roma people. Weddings in particular featured a variety of klezmer tunes that served practical purposes: stately processionals to accompany the bridal couple and their families through the streets; up-tempo dances for celebrating after the ceremony; and mournful melodies to facilitate weeping. What is a wedding without tears\, after all? The music was an essential part of the event\, as it connected people with their emotions. Players\, responding to the mood of the crowd\, would make their instruments imitate human sounds\, particularly laughter\, sighs and sobs. In addition\, elaborate melodic improvisation was and remains an essential facet of klezmer sound.   Klezmer – the name comes from two Hebrew words: “kley” (vessel or instrument) and “zemer” (song) – originally referred to the musicians who played it. Over time\, like the music itself\, the word has evolved and today denotes an instantly recognizable and wholly distinctive instrumental style.   When Jews began emigrating en masse to the United States at the end of the 19th century\, klezmorim brought their music with them. In America\, klezmorim quickly absorbed the musical influences of their new environs. With the advent of sound recording\, traditional klezmer instruments such as violin\, bass\, drum\, and zimbl (cymbalom) were augmented by the clarinet\, accordion and various brass instruments. At the same time\, klezmer and a newly emerging American music called jazz cross-pollinated. Some of jazz’s greatest stars\, like Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw\, shaped jazz with their Jewish musical sensibilities\, and some traditional klezmer tunes became crossover jazz hits. Der Shtiler Bulgar morphed into the Johnny Mercer hit song And the Angels Sing\, for example.   Klezmer music has been enjoying a revival since the mid-1970s\, when musicians interested in folk and roots music rediscovered it. Today\, klezmer sounds infuse a wide variety of genres\, from traditional to jazz\, fusion\, rock\, folk\, hip-hop\, avant-garde\, classical and punk.   \n\n\n\n\nDavid Krakauer and Kathleen Tagg The Fretless Clarinet: Concerto for Klezmer Clarinet and Orchestra\nCOMPOSER: David Krakauer was born on November 22\, 1956\, in New York City; Kathleen Tagg was born on August 16\, 1977\, in South Africa WORK COMPOSED: 2021. Co-commissioned by the Santa Rosa Symphony (lead commissioner)\, the Eugene Symphony and the John and Adele Gray Endowment Fund and dedicated to Francesco Lecce-Chong and the two symphonies. WORLD PREMIERE: Performed by the Santa Rosa Symphony at the Green Music Center’s Weill Hall in Rohnert Park\, California\, November 6-8\, 2021. Instrumentation: 2 flutes\, 2 oboes\, 2 clarinets\, 2 bassoons\, 4 horns\, 2 trumpets\, 3 trombones\, solo tuba\, timpani\, percussion and strings. Estimated duration: 20 minutes   “We are the sum of our parts – it’s my greatest strength\, but it also makes it hard to categorize me as a musician\,” clarinetist David Krakauer acknowledges. Acclaimed for his unique sound and approach\, Krakauer has received international praise as a key innovator in modern klezmer as well as a major voice in classical music. Krakauer is an endlessly curious musician; over the years he has collaborated with top musicians from the worlds of klezmer\, hip hop\, classical\, avant-garde and jazz. In recent years\, he has focused on his creative collaborations with pianist\, composer and producer Kathleen Tagg.   Tagg has presented her music on four continents in leading venues such as Carnegie Hall\, had her original music performed in world-class venues such as New York’s Lincoln Center\, appeared on a host of classical\, world music and multi-genre recordings\, and produced numerous CDs and inter-disciplinary musical programs from South Africa to Los Angeles.   In 2004\, Krakauer and Tagg met at the Manhattan School of Music\, where Krakauer is a member of the faculty\, and began working together in 2012. “We started off playing standard classical repertoire together\, Brahms and Debussy\,” Krakauer remembers\, “but we wanted to do something more creative\, so we started working on folk material and original compositions.”   Tagg and Krakauer bring distinct and complimentary musical skills and experiences to their creative partnership. “I’m an omnivorous listener\,” Tagg explains. “I was a cellist\, street musician\, church organist\, session musician and wrote music for the theatre. I was also deeply influenced by the environment in post-apartheid Capetown in the 1990s. I got to study African traditions and learn music from around the continent – marimbas\, interlocking patterns\, dances. There are 11 official languages in South Africa\, and many diverse cultures. I appreciate the different cultures\, but I’m not an expert in any one of them. For me\, the lasting legacy I took away from that time when I was in conservatory doing counterpoint in the morning and marimba music in the afternoon was an essential openness and the desire to connect on a human level.”   The jazz and funk Krakauer grew up listening to flavors and sometimes dictates the direction of his own klezmer-oriented compositions. Tagg came to klezmer as an adult in her early 30s. “Each time we collaborate in a different way\,” says Tagg. “This concerto is a piece for David to perform. It’s his world and it’s very personal to him. Every originating impetus was from David\, while I brought form and structure and construction to it.”   Krakauer adds\, “I gave Kathleen a simple clarinet melody and a primitive bass line\, which she sculpted into a composition for clarinet and orchestra. She suggested structures and modulations. She was able to work with the form so that it retained a kind of ‘required simplicity\,’ but still made it a work that felt good in the context of a clarinet and symphony orchestra.”   The concerto’s title comes from Krakauer’s reputation for virtuoso glissandi (sliding up or down a scale\, like the opening of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue). A friend\, listening to Krakauer’s effortless riffs\, remarked\, “You play a fretless clarinet\,” by which he meant Krakauer’s ability to gliss seamlessly\, with no rests or glitches. \n\n\n\nKrakauer provided the following notes:\n“Sanctuary City is informed by immigration struggles and the Black Lives Matter movement. New York City has been a sanctuary city for a long time; it provides opportunity for cultures to come together. I used material from a suite I’d written as an imaginary meeting between [jazz clarinetist] Sidney Bechet and [klezmer clarinetist] Naftule Brandwein\, who have influenced my musical personality more than anyone else – I thought of them as immigrants coming from different places to meet in New York. This movement channels the intense feelings of fear\, rage\, worry\, exhaustion and anger that were bubbling over during COVID lockdowns in summer of 2020. The orchestra is sliding around all over the place. On top it’s cantorial\, melismatic\, and the orchestra is very turbulent\, and then it starts to resolve with a Terkisher beat that gains momentum and cohesion. You hear Bechet’s growling quality throughout. \n\n\n\n“Mozart on the Judengasse – When I was a teen\, I started playing Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. The fourth movement is a theme and variations\, and I heard Jewish underpinnings in the viola variation. In Salzburg\, I visited Mozart’s birthplace and found the nearby Judengasse – the Jewish street. Mozart must have passed by as a kid and heard Jewish prayer when he lived there. I wrote a whole movement based on this viola variation\, and Kathleen did her magic on it. It uses the same orchestration as Mozart’s clarinet concerto\, and the structure is a traditional klezmer tune in form and proportion. Klezmer fans will hear the influence of the famous klezmer tune ‘Der Gasn Nign’ (Street Song). \n\n\n\n“Ancestral Grooves [also the name of David’s current working band] – We were playing in Siena\, Italy\, and then in England for a wedding\, and we had a week in between\, so we rented an Airbnb on Lago Como [in northern Italy outside Milan]. There was an amazing storm on the lake – very driving and stormy – that gave birth to the beginning of this movement. The central melodic idea evolved from klezmer doinas – modal\, monophonic\, melismatic improvisations. Then I wrote an original bulgar based on that doina material – so the music goes from storm to doina to bulgar. The movement ends in a joyous romp. \n\n\n\n“This concerto is about my world from the past 30 years. It’s a big part of my legacy.” \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\nNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade (Symphonic Suite) for Orchestra\, Opus 35\n Composer: born March 18\, 1844\, Tikhvin\, near Novgorod\, Russia; died June 21\, 1908\, Lyubensk [now Pskov district]\, near St. PetersburgWork composed: during the summer of 1888 World premiere: Rimsky-Korsakov conducted the premiere in St. Petersburg on November 3\, 1888 Instrumentation: solo violin\, 2 flutes (one doubling piccolo)\, 2 oboes (one doubling English horn)\, 2 clarinets\, 2 bassoons\, 4 horns\, 2 trumpets\, 3 trombones\, tuba\, timpani\, bass drum\, cymbals\, snare drum\, tam-tam\, tambourine\, triangle\, harp and strings Estimated duration: 42 minutes   Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade\, inspired by alluring images from the Tales from the Arabian Nights\, established the Russian composer as a brilliant orchestrator. Rimsky-Korsakov described Scheherazade as an Eastern “narrative of … varied fairy-tale wonders.” The solo violin\, as Scheherazade\, stitches the exotic stories together.   The literary inspiration for Rimsky-Korsakov’s orchestral masterpiece is a collection of folk tales from Egypt\, India and Persia that includes stories dating back over 1\,000 years. In 1704\, French translator Antoine Galland began publishing the Tales from the Arabian Nights in a series of installments\, beginning with “Sinbad the Sailor.” The otherness of the East captured the imaginations of Westerners. In their minds it became a quasi-magical realm tinged with mystery\, the scent of foreign perfumes and spices\, beguiling music and other sensual delights. Galland’s translations created a frenzy among Europeans for all things Eastern and contributed to the rise of turquerie\, an interest in the culture\, art and style of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.   Rimsky-Korsakov capitalized on listeners’ instant association of Scheherazade with the East when he immortalized the legendary storyteller and her fantastic tales in music. According to legend\, Scheherazade’s stories were invented to prevent her execution at the hands of her brutal husband. Sultan Shakriar believed all women were naturally deceptive and had each of his wives killed after one night. Scheherazade escaped this fate by telling stories that spun themselves out over 1\,001 nights. Her stories were an ingenious amalgam of poems\, folk songs and fairy tales. Infected by the universal desire to find out “what happened next\,” the sultan deferred her execution each morning and eventually commuted her death sentence.   In his memoir My Musical Life\, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote\, “I meant these hints to direct but slightly the hearer’s fancy on the path which my own fancy had traveled. All I desired was that the hearer\, if he liked my piece as symphonic music\, should carry away the impression that it is beyond doubt an oriental narrative of some numerous and varied fairy-tale wonders\, and not merely four pieces played one after the other and composed on the basis of themes common to all four movements.” More specifically\, Rimsky-Korsakov indicates the solo violin\, which opens the first two movements\, the intermezzo of the third movement and the conclusion of the fourth all correspond to Scheherazade herself. (The forbidding theme in the brasses that opens the whole work and is sometimes associated with the Sultan is perhaps better perceived as a metaphor for Scheherazade’s death sentence. Postponed as long as she continues to beguile the Sultan with her inventive stories\, it is always present as a threatening\, if unspoken\, reminder.)   Rimsky-Korsakov’s student\, composer Anatoly Lyadov\, suggested the names by which each of Scheherazade’s four sections are known to most audiences. Although Rimsky-Korsakov approved them initially\, he had them removed from subsequent editions of the score\, in keeping with his conception that Scheherazade was not a linear narrative. Instead\, Rimsky-Korsakov described it as a “musical kaleidoscope” of images: the ocean carrying Sinbad’s ship from one near-escape to the next; the roguish exploits of a Kalendar Prince (Rimsky-Korsakov does not specify which prince tale he is illustrating but presents a lighthearted composite of mischief-making); an enchanting love story of a young prince and princess\, possibly Aladdin and the princess Badur; and a vastly different ocean\, now storm-tossed and deadly\, which finally wrecks Sinbad’s ship against the rocks.   \n\n\n\n\n\n © Elizabeth Schwartz URL:https://www.srsymphony.org/event/klezmer-krakauer/ CATEGORIES:Classical Series END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTSTAMP:20260420T030200 CREATED:20210623T200341Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240223T225835Z UID:24865-1705536000-1705536000@www.srsymphony.org SUMMARY:Elgar & Mozart DESCRIPTION:Health & Safety\n\n\n\nAges 12 & up; \n\n\n\n\nMasks are required \n\n\n\nPhoto ID is required\n\n\n\n\nAnd one of the following: \n\n\n\n\nProof of vaccination – name on card must match photo ID. Click here acceptable forms of proof.\n\n\n\nNegative COVID-19 PCR test (72 hours prior to performance) – name on test results must match photo ID.\n\n\n\n\nNo one will be admitted without a mask\, photo ID and either proof of vaccine or negative COVID-19 PCR test result. No exceptions. \n\n\n\nPlease stay home if… \n\n\n\n\nYou are sick or have any of the following symptoms: fever\, sore throat\, chills\, cough\, shortness of breath\, congestion\, nausea\, or vomiting.\n\n\n\nYou’ve been in close contact with an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 or exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms within the past 14 days.\n\n\n\nYou’ve been directed to self-isolate or quarantine by a health care provider or public health official.\n\n\n\nYou are awaiting the results of a COVID-19 test.\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nDiscovery Rehearsal at 2:00 pm: Children between 7-11 years of age may attend and will be required to wear a mask. \n\n\n\nConcert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong\n\n\n\nConcert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall. \n\n\n\n\nSaturday\, October 2\, 2021 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\nSunday\, October 3\, 2021 at 2:00 PM\n\n\n\nMonday\, October 4\, 2021 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nPlan Your Visit\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series \n \n \n\n Directions & More \n \n \n\n Seating Map \n \n \n\n Before the Concert \n \n \n\n At the Concert \n \n \n\n Dining & Hotels \n \n \n \n \n \n\n\n\nClassical Concert Series underwritten by Anderman Family Foundation  \n\n\n\nConcerts sponsored by Marcia Wagner\, in memory of Hap WagnerConductor Francesco Lecce-Chong underwritten by David and Corinne ByrdGuest Artist Julian Rhee underwritten by Ava and Sam GuerreraSRS@Home Series underwritten by Gregory SprehnDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-Concert Talks sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard GrundySeason Media Sponsor: The Press Democrat \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProgram Notes by Elizabeth Schwartz\n\n\n\n\nLibby Larsen – Deep Summer Music for Orchestra\nCOMPOSER: born December 24\, 1950\, Wilmington\, DE WORK COMPOSED: 1982; commissioned by the Terrace Mill Foundation for the Minnesota Orchestra WORLD PREMIERE: Joseph Giunta led the Minnesota Orchestra on July 2\, 1982\, in an outdoor concert in Terrace\, MN INSTRUMENTATION: piccolo\, 2 flutes\, 2 oboes\, 2 clarinets\, bass clarinet\, 2 bassoons\, contrabassoon\, 4 horns\, trumpet\, 3 trombones\, timpani\, marimba\, orchestra bells\, triangle and strings ESTIMATED DURATION: 8 minutes \n\n\n\nOver the course of her prolific career\, Libby Larsen has helped shape the sound of contemporary American music. Larsen’s catalogue of over 500 works includes music for virtually every genre\, and her music has been commissioned by major artists and ensembles around the world. \n\n\n\nIn 1983\, Larsen was appointed Composer-in-Residence with the Minnesota Orchestra\, making Larsen the first woman composer to hold this position with a major American orchestra. “Panorama and horizon are part of the natural culture of the plains states\,” Larsen observes in her notes for Deep Summer Music. “On the plains\, one cannot help but be affected by the sweep of the horizon and the depth of color as the eye adjusts from the nearest to the farthest view. The glory of this phenomenon is particularly evident at harvest time\, in deep summer\, when acres of ripened wheat\, sunflowers\, corn\, rye and oats blaze with color. In the deep summer\, winds create wave after wave of harvest ripeness which\, when beheld by the human eye\, engender a kind of emotional peace and awe: a feeling of abundance combined with the knowledge that this abundance is only as bountiful as nature will allow . . . Built into the score are modulating percussion and string patterns over which soar a broad string melody. A solo trumpet recalls the presence of the individual amidst the vastness of the landscape.” \n\n\n\nDeep Summer Music premiered at an outdoor concert by the Minnesota Orchestra in the tiny rural community of Terrace\, population approximately200. The concert drew an audience of more than 8\,000 people from both Minnesota and neighboring South Dakota. “There was the most beautiful blanket of quiet\,” Larsen recalled “… and as one trumpet solo happened\, a ‘V’ formation of geese flew over and honked\, seeming to echo the music. It was a lovely and peaceful experience – and you couldn’t have cued the geese any better!” \n\n\n\n\nWolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major\, K. 219\, Turkish\nCOMPOSER: born January 27\, 1756\, Salzburg\, Austria; died December 5\, 1791\, Vienna WORK COMPOSED: Mozart wrote all five of his violin concertos between April and December 1775\, probably for violinist Antonio Brunetti\, who took over as concertmaster for the Archbishop of Salzburg’s court orchestra after Mozart resigned his post there in 1776. WORLD PREMIERE: December 1775 in Salzburg INSTRUMENTATION: solo violin\, 2 oboes\, 2 horns\, and strings ESTIMATED DURATION: 31 minutes \n\n\n\nToday\, we think of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as a composer and virtuoso pianist\, but he was also a prodigally skilled violinist. When Mozart was a boy\, he traveled throughout Europe displaying his virtuosity on both violin and keyboard\, but he also absorbed the musical styles of Italy\, with its emphasis on lyricism and bravura technique. Both qualities infuse Mozart’s music for violin\, particularly his five violin concertos\, most of which he wrote over a few months in 1775. \n\n\n\nThe A Major Violin Concerto is the most mature of the five; the overall mood\, even in the Adagio\, is one of optimism and joyous expression. In the first movement\, the soloist explores the violin’s highest notes in graceful arabesques. In the tender\, intimate E major Adagio\, both orchestra and soloist play passages of exquisite transparency. The closing Rondeau combines Mozart’s deceptively simple melodies with adventures in minor keys and folk music flourishes; these account for its “Turkish” nickname (in Mozart’s time\, any vaguely Easternsounding music was referred to as Turkish\, although in the case of this concerto\, Mozart’s inspiration was actually Hungarian folk music). \n\n\n\n\nGabriella Smith – Rust\nCOMPOSER: born December 26\, 1991\, Berkeley\, CA WORK COMPOSED: 2016 as a commission from the Tucson Symphony Orchestra\, which premiered it in March 2017 INSTRUMENTATION: 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo)\, 2 oboes\, 2 clarinets\, 2 bassoons\, 2 horns\, 2 trumpets\, 2 trombones\, tuba\, piano and strings ESTIMATED DURATION: 8 minutes \n\n\n\nComposer/environmentalist Gabriella Smith has made an international name for herself with music hailed by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “high-voltage and wildly imaginative.” Clive Paget\, writing for Musical America\, declares Smith possesses “the coolest\, most exciting\, most inventive new voice I’ve heard in ages.” \n\n\n\nSmith grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area playing and writing music\, hiking\, backpacking and volunteering on a songbird research project. Her music grows out of a love of play\, exploring new sounds on instruments and connecting listeners with the natural world. Recent highlights include the LA Philharmonic’s performances of Tumblebird Contrails\, conducted by John Adams\, and the Aizuri Quartet’s recording of Carrot Revolution on their Grammy-nominated debut album Blueprinting. In June of this year\, Smith released her first full-length album\, Lost Coast\, with cellist Gabriel Cabezas.\n“In the summer of 2016\, I spent three weeks at a music festival in the mountains of New Mexico\, climbing peaks in the morning and attending concerts at night\,” Smith writes. “Rust weaves those two experiences together. One of the final performances of the festival was Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins in B minor. For weeks afterwards\, the final bars looped in my head\, repeating over and over\, mingling with the mountains until they became a minimalist metamorphosis of Vivaldi rusting away into the landscape.” \n\n\n\nSmith’s specific soundscape incorporates minimalism (music restricted to a limited palette of timbres\, tonalities or rhythms) and aleatoric qualities (some aspect of the music occurs by chance; e.g.\, performers may choose how many times to repeat a given phrase). In the opening of Rust\, we hear the closing phrases from the Vivaldi concerto rising by quartertones in a slow\, inexorable progression\, much as rust slowly consumes its original metal. \n\n\n\n\nEdward Elgar – Variations on an Original Theme for Orchestra\, Opus 36\, Enigma Variations\nCOMPOSER: born June 2\, 1857\, Broadheath\, near Worcester\, England; died February 23\, 1934\, Worcester WORK COMPOSED: October 21\, 1898 through the spring of 1899; dedicated “to my friends pictured within.” WORLD PREMIERE: Hans Richter conducted the first performance on June 19\, 1899\, at St. James’ Hall in London. INSTRUMENTATION: 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo)\, 2 oboes\, 2 clarinets\, bass clarinet\, 3 bassoons\, 4 horns\, 3 trumpets\, 3 trombones\, tuba\, timpani\, bass drum\, cymbals\, snare drum\, triangle\, organ\, and strings ESTIMATED DURATION: 29 minutes \n\n\n\nElgar’s Variations on an Original Theme for Orchestra\, Op. 36\, better known as the Enigma Variations\, poses an intriguing mystery\, which to this day has never been solved. There are two enigmas in the Variations: one opens the piece; the other is silent but present throughout. Much has been written about the Variations\, including lengthy discussions of their actual title. Elgar called them simply Variations for Orchestra on an Original Theme\, and later added the word “Enigma” in the manuscript. \n\n\n\nThe Variations marked a new phase in Elgar’s career. His previous works\, primarily for chorus and orchestra\, had brought him fame within England\, but he remained largely unknown elsewhere. When renowned conductor Hans Richter agreed to premiere the Variations\, he also became their champion\, introducing them to audiences throughout England and Europe. \n\n\n\nWith the success of the Variations\, English music itself\, which had languished in relative obscurity since the death of Henry Purcell some 300 years earlier\, also received a much-needed boost. The work immediately intrigued audiences with its thirteen portraits of Elgar’s friends and family\, and his own self-portrait finale. However\, Elgar intended this loving tribute to his circle of friends to be enjoyed as pure music. He wrote\, “There is nothing to be gained in an artistic or musical sense by solving the enigma of any of the personalities; the listener should hear the music as music\, and not trouble himself with any intricacies of ‘programme.’ To me\, the various personalities have been a source of inspiration\, their idealisations a pleasure – and one that is intensified as the years go by.” \n\n\n\n“The enigma I will not explain – its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed\, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture; further\, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes’ but is not played\,” Elgar wrote in the notes for the first performance. This silent second enigma sparked much speculation\, from “Rule Britannia” and “God Save the King” to “Auld Lang Syne” or even “Ta Ra Ra Boom Dee Ay.” Some scholars suggest the second enigma is not musical at all but an abstract concept\, such as friendship or love. \n\n\n\nThe audible enigma theme is Elgar himself (he felt it embodied the loneliness of the creative artist). It came to him one evening in October of 1898 while he was improvising at the piano. \n\n\n\nIn a letter to his friend and publisher August Johann Jaeger\, Elgar wrote\, “I have sketched a set of Variations (orkestra) on an original theme: the Variations have amused me because I’ve labeled ’em with the nicknames of my particular friends – you are Nimrod. That is to say I’ve written the variations each one to represent the mood of the ‘party’ – I’ve liked to imagine the ‘party’ writing the var: him (or her) self and have written what I think they wd. have written – if they were asses enough to compose – it’s a quaint idee & the result is amusing to those behind the scenes & won’t affect the hearer who ‘nose nuffin.’ What think you?” \n\n\n\nElgar indicated with initials and a few names each character pictured in his music: \n\n\n\nC.A.E. Caroline Alice Elgar\, Elgar’s wife. \n\n\n\nH.D.S-P. Hew David Steuart-Powell\, an amateur pianist with whom Elgar played in chamber ensembles. \n\n\n\nR.B.T. Richard Baxter Townshend\, an eccentric scholar/author whose caricature of an old man is the subject of the variation. \n\n\n\nW.M.B. William Meath Baker\, the squire of Hasfield Court\, whose habit of slamming doors upon exiting rooms is heard in this variation. \n\n\n\nR.P.A. Richard Penrose Arnold\, son of poet Matthew Arnold\, known as a daydreamer.\nYsobel Isabel Fitton\, an amateur violist. \n\n\n\nTroyte Arthur Troyte Griffith\, an artist and architect and a pianist of limited skill\, hence the bombastic quality of his variation. \n\n\n\nW.N. Winifred Norbury\, secretary of the Worcestershire Philharmonic Society (this variation is actually a portrait of her stately house\, the scene of numerous musical gatherings; it also captures her ready laugh). URL:https://www.srsymphony.org/event/elgar-mozart/ CATEGORIES:Classical Series END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTSTAMP:20260420T030200 CREATED:20190204T184433Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240402T170146Z UID:24842-1705536000-1705536000@www.srsymphony.org SUMMARY:Riveting Rachmaninoff DESCRIPTION:Meet Composer-in-Residence Matt Browne\n\n\n\nLearn about Matt Browne’s Symphony No. 1\, The Course of Empire \n\n\n\nThomas Cole’s paintings\, The Course of Empire\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLearn About the Music on the Program\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\nConcert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong\n\n\n\nConcert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall. \n\n\n\n\nSaturday\, February 8\, 2020 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\nSunday\, February 9\, 2020 at 2:00 PM\n\n\n\nMonday\, February 10\, 2020 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\n\nListen to this Concert’s Music on Spotify\n\n\n\nMusic selections handpicked by Francesco! \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\nPlan Your Visit\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series \n \n \n\n Directions & More \n \n \n\n Seating Map \n \n \n\n Before the Concert \n \n \n\n At the Concert \n \n \n\n Dining & Hotels \n \n \n \n \n \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWe gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:\n\n\n\nSponsored by Linda Castiglioni Conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong underwritten by David and Corinne ByrdGuest Artist Natasha Paremski underwritten by The Alan and Susan Seidenfeld Charitable Trust  World Premiere underwritten by First Symphony project commissioners: Nancy and David Berto\, Gordon Blumenfeld\, Chuck and Ellen Wear\, Chloe Tula and Francesco Lecce-Chong\, and Creighton White in loving memory of DorothyRachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 underwritten by Dr. Larry Schoenrock Endowment FundDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-Concert Talks Sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard GrundyVideo underwritten by Chuck & Ellen Wear \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFebruary 2020 Program Notes  By Steven Ledbetter\n\n\n\n\nLudwig Van Beethoven \nLeonore Overture No. 3 for Orchestra\, Opus 72b Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized in Bonn\, Germany\, on December 17\, 1770\, and died in Vienna on March 27\, 1827. He began composing Fidelio (under the title Leonore) in 1804\, but only after several revisions and a change of title\, to Fidelio\, in 1814\, did it finally hold the stage. The score calls for flutes\, oboes\, clarinets and bassoons in pairs\, four horns\, two trumpets\, three trombones\, timpani and strings. DURATION IS ABOUT 14 MINUTES. \n\n\n\nBeethoven’s struggles with musical drama in his single completed opera are well documented not only in the different versions of the opera itself (the earliest of which has been recorded\, as Leonore\, along with the definitive Fidelio) but also in the overtures—no fewer than four!—that Beethoven composed for his work. Of these\, three are called “Leonore Overtures\,” according to the title that Beethoven preferred\, and the fourth is called simply the Fidelio Overture. \n\n\n\nBeethoven wrote what we now call No. 3 for a revised version of the opera given in March 1806. But he eventually chose to replace it; the problem with the overture when connected to the opera is that it is too powerful\, utterly overwhelming the light-hearted opening scene. It remains one of the most dramatic and exciting overtures ever written. \n\n\n\nBeginning with a slow introduction that slips surprisingly from the tonic C major to a dark B minor and then to A‑flat (where Beethoven briefly quotes the aria of the political prisoner Florestan)\, it takes some time for Beethoven to return to his home key for the Allegro and the main body of the movement. The Allegro presents music of tense excitement not found in the opera itself\, then modulates to a bright E major for the secondary theme (Florestan’s aria again\, stated by clarinet). The taut development CULMINATES in a climactic gesture borrowed from the opera—an offstage trumpet signaling the arrival of help and the downfall of the villainous Don Pizarro’s murderous intentions. This short orchestral work brilliantly encapsulates the dramatic thrust of Beethoven’s sole opera.  \n\n\n\n\nMatt Browne\nSymphony No. 1 for Orchestra\, The Course of Empire [First Symphony Project World Premiere] Matt Browne was born in Burlington\, Vermont on November 16\, 1988 and lives in New York. The Course of Empire\, his first symphony\, was commissioned by the Santa Rosa Symphony and the Eugene Symphony\, with funding from four patron households from each of the symphonies\, including Music Director Francesco Lecce-Chong. The four-year “First Symphony Project” commissions four young American composers\, of which Matt Browne is the first\, to compose their first full-fledged symphony. These are the first performances. The score bears the dedication “to my roommate\, landlord and grandmother Helen Brenner.” The score calls for three each of flutes doubling piccolos\, oboes with english horn\, clarinets with bass clarinet and e-flat clarinet\, bassoons with contrabassoon\, four horns\, three trumpets\, three trombones\, tuba\, timpani\, three percussion\, harp\, piano\, and strings. DURATION IS ABOUT 35 MINUTES. Matt Browne has composed orchestral works\, tone poems and concertos\, with catchy titles that signal something about the mood and character of a work: How the Solar System Was Won\, Barnstorming Season\, Cabinet of Curiosities (a concerto for four saxophones and orchestra)\, among others. His work also includes a number of pieces for wind ensemble\, chamber music of various kinds\, including a subset featuring the saxophone\, and vocal music\, including a one-act “anti-opera” with the appealing title Better Than It Sounds. \n\n\n\nBrowne earned his Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder\, and his Doctor of Musical Arts in composition at the University of Michigan. His principal teachers have included Michael Daugherty\, Kristin Kuster and Carter Pann.   \n\n\n\nThe title of his symphony\, The Course of Empire\, evokes the westward drive of the United States in the 19th century and more particularly a series of five landscape paintings by Thomas Cole (1801-1848)\, regarded as the founder of the Hudson River School. In the mid-1830s he painted a series of five allegorical landscapes in which a mountain of a particularly identifiable shape appears\, while the remainder of each painting passes through a series of changes over time\, from the simple landscape\, through habitation and growth of an urban environment\, to ultimate decay.  Each of the paintings\, in sequence\, is the subject of a single movement of the work\, which Browne describes in his program note. Program Note by composer\, Matt Browne:Cole’s The Course of Empire has been seen as a critical response to the election of populist president Andrew Jackson just a few years prior. He drew direct inspiration from Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage\, specifically: There is the moral of all human tales;‘Tis but the same rehearsal of the past.First Freedom and then Glory—when that fails\,Wealth\, vice\, corruption—barbarism at last.And History\, with all her volumes vast\,Hath but one page. The symphony is in five movements\, each one corresponding to a painting. In it there are several musical motives analogous to themes in the paintings\, all tied together by an expansive and imposing minor 7th interval heard in each movement\, representing the large boulder atop a mountain seen in every painting\, itself representing fate and inevitability. \n\n\n\nAscension\, after Cole’s The Savage State\, depicts a wild landscape inhabited by hunter-gatherers at daybreak just as a morning storm has blown over. The music captures both the grandiose and magical nature of a sunrise over an untouched earth\, as well as the feverish efforts by early humans to carve out a place in the world for themselves\, represented by a deer hunt. The large boulder sitting atop a mountain in the distance overlooks the scene.Pastorale\, after Cole’s The Pastoral or Arcadian State\, is depicted in a peaceful morning far into the future\, as the land has been settled and cultivated. The scene is carefree and in harmony with nature. \n\n\n\nApotheosis\, after Cole’s The Consummation of Empire\, shows an expansive and ostentatious city\, covered with grandiose marble statues\, arches and fountains. The scene is the largest of the five paintings\, and takes place at midday\, during what appears to be a decadent parade attended by the city’s immense crowds. The boulder once prominent in the earlier scenes is now pushed far off into the background. The music charges along confidently\, but is eventually overcome with a soft\, contemplative meditation. This\, however\, is short lived and we quickly return to the assertively patriotic revelry as we race to what appears to be a rousing finale. \n\n\n\nHubris\, after Cole’s Destruction\, follows directly and abruptly after Apotheosis’ attempted happy ending. It begins with frightening drums\, and dissonant calls of the fate motive from the brass. A terrifying afternoon tempest roars as an invading force burns the city to the ground in a violent sacking. The music\, just as these scenes throughout history are\, is relentless. \n\n\n\nEphemera\, after Cole’s Desolation\, emerges from the rubble with a lonely viola tune\, eventually and cautiously joined by other string sections\, accompanied sparsely by meandering twinkles in the harp\, piano and percussion. Occasionally\, we hear a distant conversation between two birds across the scene. Here we see the remains of the city\, having been abandoned long ago and now being reclaimed by nature. We are in the early evening\, and see the moon’s reflection glistening softly on the still water. The music is numb\, desolate\, at times pained\, but eventually settles into a resolute and calm reprise of the sunrise theme falling gently into the music with which the symphony began. We hear a distant memory of Calon Lân in the piano\, one or two unrequited bird calls\, and a few more utterances of the “boulder” motive\, once again prominent in the scene\, though now it no longer strikes us as grandiose and commanding. It is simply there.   \n\n\n\n\nSergei Rachmaninoff\nConcerto No. 3 in D minor for Piano and Orchestra\, Opus 30Sergei Vassilievich Rachmaninoff was born at Semyonovo\, district of Starorusky\, Russia\, on April 1\, 1873\, and died in Beverly Hills\, California\, on March 28\, 1943. He composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 during the summer of 1909\, in preparation for an American tour and played the first performance at the New Theatre in New York on that November 28\, with the New York Symphony Society\, conducted by Walter Damrosch. In addition to the solo piano\, the score calls for two each of flutes\, oboes\, clarinets and bassoons\, four horns\, two trumpets\, three trombones and tuba\, timpani\, side drum\, cymbals\, bass drum and strings. DURATION IS ABOUT 39 MINUTES. When Rachmaninoff wrote his Second Piano Concerto\, there was a question whether he would ever compose again. His confidence and self-esteem had been shattered by the catastrophic premiere of his First Symphony in 1897. Only after extensive counseling sessions\, partly under hypnosis\, was he able to compose—and the result was the Second Concerto\, which was instantly established as an audience favorite. \n\n\n\nBy 1909\, when he began work on the Third\, he had to compete with his younger self. He spent the summer planning his first American tour\, of which the culminating event took place in New York City on November 28\, when he premiered the new piano concerto\, which he played three times in six weeks with two different orchestras.  It was considered a qualified success—respected\, though by no means the instant hit of the previous concerto.Everyone mentioned its difficulty. Of course Rachmaninoff wrote it for himself\, one of  the most gifted keyboard artists of all time. Yet he begins quietly\, with a muted muttering in the strings of a subdued march character and then a long\, simple melody presented in bare octaves in the piano. Like so many Russian tunes and so many of Rachmaninoff’s\, this one circles round and round through a limited space. He insisted that this was an original tune\, though musicologist Joseph Yasser found a marked similarity with an old Russian monastic chant\, which the composer might have heard as a boy. In any case\, its essential Russianness is palpable. \n\n\n\nThe orchestra takes over the theme while the piano begins rapid figuration to a solo climax and preparation for the second theme\, a dialogue between soloist and orchestra emphasizing a rhythmic motif that soon appears in a leisurely\, romantic cantabile melody sung by the piano. A literal restatement of the concerto’s opening bars marks the beginning of the development\, which culminates in a gigantic solo cadenza which takes the place of the normal recapitulation\, commenting in extenso on the motivic figures of first the principal theme\, then the secondary theme; after its close\, only a brief reference to both themes suffices to bring the movement to a close. \n\n\n\nThe slow movement\, entitled Intermezzo\, seems to start in a “normal” key\, A major (the dominant of D minor) with a brief languishing figure in the strings that generates an elegiac mood. But the piano enters explosively to break the mood and carry us to a distant key of D-flat\, where Rachmaninoff presents a sumptuous and lavishly-harmonized version of the main theme in a texture filled with dense piano chords. A seemingly new theme\, presented as a light waltz in 3/8 time\, heard in the solo clarinet and bassoon against sparkling figuration in the piano\, is a subtle trick: it is\, in fact\, the opening theme of the entire concerto\, but beginning at a different level of the scale (the third instead of the tonic) and so changed in its rhythm as to conceal the connection almost perfectly! Not one person in a thousand will recognize it by hearing alone! \n\n\n\nThe soloist “interrupts” the end of the slow movement with a brief cadenza that leads back to the home key of D minor for the finale. This is the ne plus ultra of virtuosic concerto finales\, filled with impetuous and dashing themes\, rhythmically driving\, syncopated and sunny by turns. A lively middle section in E-flat involves acrobatic and lightly-spooky variations on a capricious theme that turns out to be related to the opening of the finale and the second theme of the first movement. Moreover\, Rachmaninoff inserts a reminder of both themes of the first movement. Following the restatement of all the thematic material\, the piano builds a long and exciting coda that brings this most brilliant and challenging of concertos to a flashing\, glamorous close.  \n\n\n\n\n\n© Steven Ledbetter (www.stevenledbetter.com) URL:https://www.srsymphony.org/event/riveting-rachmaninoff/ CATEGORIES:Classical Series END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTSTAMP:20260420T030200 CREATED:20190204T173620Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240119T222704Z UID:24841-1705536000-1705536000@www.srsymphony.org SUMMARY:Shadows and Sunshine DESCRIPTION:Learn about the Music on the Program\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nConcert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong\n\n\n\nConcert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall. \n\n\n\n\nSaturday\, January 11\, 2020 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\nSunday\, January 12\, 2020 at 2:00 PM\n\n\n\nMonday\, January 13\, 2020 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\n\nListen to this Concert’s Music on Spotify\n\n\n\nMusic selections handpicked by Francesco! \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPlan Your Visit\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series \n \n \n\n Directions & More \n \n \n\n Seating Map \n \n \n\n Before the Concert \n \n \n\n At the Concert \n \n \n\n Dining & Hotels \n \n \n \n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSponsored by The Peggy Anne Covington FundSupporting sponsor: The Press Democrat and The E. Nakamichi Foundation Conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong underwritten by David and Corinne ByrdGuest Artist Simone Porter underwritten by Ava and Sam GuerreraDiscovery Open Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre-Concert Talks Sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard GrundyVideo underwritten by Chuck & Ellen Wear \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJanuary 2020 Program Notes by Steven Ledbetter\n\n\n\n\nMissy Mazzoli\nSinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) for Orchestra Missy Mazzoli was born in Lansdale\, Pennsylvania\, on October 27\, 1980. Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) was composed for chamber orchestra\, and first performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group\, John Adams conducting\, on April 8\, 2014. An enlarged version was performed by the Boulder Philharmonic\, Michael Butterman conducting\, on February 12\, 2016. The score calls for pairs of flutes\, oboes\, clarinets and bassoons (doubling harmonicas)\, horns (doubling harmonicas)\, trumpets (doubling harmonicas)\, trombones (doubling harmonicas)\, one tuba\, percussion for two players\, piano (doubling synthesizer; organ sound) and strings. DURATION IS ABOUT 12 MINUTES. \n\n\n\nMissy Mazzoli\, who can easily be called a superstar composer today on the strength of her growing list of powerfully-conceived works\, including several operas\, received her Bachelor’s degree at Boston University and a Master’s at Yale University\, followed by additional study at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. Her music has been performed widely by soloists such as pianist Emmanuel Ax\, violinist Jennifer Koh\, cellist Maya Beyser and mezzo Abigail Fischer; by ensembles like the Kronos Quartet\, eighth blackbird\, and the NOW Ensmble; and a growing list of major orchestras. She has also written three operas with librettist Royce Vavrek and has been commissioned to write a new work for the Metropolitan Opera (one of two women to receive such a commission) based on George Saunders’ recent\, highly-successful novel Lincoln in the Bardo. \n\n\n\nHer description of Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) captures the uniqueness of her conception of the piece. \n\n\n\nSinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) is music in the shape of a solar system\, a collection of rococo loops that twist around each other within a larger orbit. The word “sinfonia” refers to baroque works for chamber orchestra\, but also to the old Italian term for a hurdy-gurdy\, a medieval stringed instrument with constant\, wheezing drones that are cranked out under melodies played on an attached keyboard. It’s a piece that churns and roils\, that inches close to the listener only to leap away at breakneck speed\, in the process transforming the ensemble turns into a makeshift hurdy-gurdy\, flung recklessly into space. Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.                                                      — Missy Mazzoli \n\n\n\n\nJean Sibelius\nConcerto in D minor for Violin and Orchestra\, Opus 47 Jean (Johan Julius Christian) Sibelius was born at Tavastehus (Humeenlinna)\, Finland\, on December 8\, 1865\, and died at Järvenpää\, at his country home near Helsingfors (Helsinki)\, on September 20\, 1957. He began work on his violin concerto in 1902\, completed it in short score in the fall of 1903\, and finished the full score about New Year 1904. After the first performance\, in Helsingfors on February 8\, 1904\, with Viktor NovaÄ_x008d_ek as soloist and with the composer conducting\, Sibelius withdrew the work for revision. In its present form it had its premiere in Berlin on October 19\, 1905\, with Karl Halir as soloist and Richard Strauss on the podium. The orchestra consists of flutes\, oboes\, clarinets and bassoons\, all in pairs; four horns\, two trumpets\, three trombones\, timpani and strings. DURATION IS ABOUT 31 MINUTES. \n\n\n\nA failed violin virtuoso is responsible for what became surely the most popular violin concerto composed in the twentieth century. Though he knew he would never play it himself\, Sibelius poured into the concerto all his love for the instrument and his understanding of its peculiar lyric qualities.In September 1902\, he wrote to his wife that he had just conceived “a marvelous opening idea” for a violin concerto\, and if he was speaking of the way that the work actually begins in its finished form\, “marvelous” is indeed the term to apply: against a hushed D-minor chord played by the strings of the orchestra\, tremolo\, the soloist enters delicately on a dissonant note\, yearning as it leans into the chord. The magic begins already during the first few seconds of the piece. \n\n\n\nBut it takes more than a wonderful opening idea to generate a large-scale work. Sibelius struggled with it for years. He drank heavily. He even virtually insulted the German violinist\, Willy Burmester\, who had encouraged him to write such a piece. In the 1890s\, when Sibelius was beginning to make his mark as a composer\, Burmester had spent some time as the concertmaster in Helsingfors\, and he had become an early champion of the budding composer. While working on the concerto throughout 1903\, Sibelius kept Burmester apprised of his progress\, and when he sent him the completed work\, Burmester was enraptured. “Wonderful! Masterly!” he wrote. “Only once before have I spoken in such terms to a composer\, and that was when Tchaikovsky showed me his concerto!” At one point\, Sibelius mentioned dedicating the work to Burmester\, too. \n\n\n\nThe violinist proposed to premiere it in Berlin in March 1904\, where his fame as a soloist would have guaranteed something of a splash. But Sibelius found himself in a fiscal emergency (and also perhaps unsure of himself\, one of the consequences of his heavy drinking)\, and he scheduled a concert of his works in Helsinki\, with the new concerto as its centerpiece. But Burmester was unable to appear at that time. Instead\, Sibelius made a choice that guaranteed failure\, by offering the premiere to an undistinguished violin teacher named Viktor NovaÄ_x008d_ek. (As difficult as the work is now\, it was even more difficult in its first version.) Neither soloist nor orchestra were up to the demands of the piece\, and one of the leading critics\, Karl Flodin\, a long-standing supporter of Sibelius\, wrote that the concerto was “a mistake.”Nonetheless\, Burmester wrote to Sibelius\, generously overlooked the slight to himself\, and offered again to play the piece in October 1904\, nobly promising\, “All my twenty-five years’ stage experience\, my artistry and insight will be placed to serve this work . . . I shall play the concerto in Helsingfors in such a way that the city will be at your feet!” But Sibelius was determined to revise the work before allowing another performance. He dawdled with the changes and finally brought himself face to face with his revisions in June 1905\, when his publisher told him that he had gotten the concerto scheduled in a prestigious concert series directed by Richard Strauss. But by this time\, Burmester’s schedule was full and he was not available. The solo part was given to Karl Halir. After the second slight\, Burmester never played the piece that he had been the prime mover in bringing to creation. \n\n\n\nThe revisions to the Violin Concerto were far more drastic than simply touching up details of the scoring\, such as composers usually undertake after a first round of rehearsals and performances of a new piece. Referring to what he considered the flaws in the work as his “secret sorrow\,” Sibelius insisted that the revision would not be ready for two years (though in the end\, he accomplished them in about a month once he really set to work). Sibelius evidently took Flodin’s critique of the first version very much to heart. He greatly reduced the amount of sheer virtuosic display in the solo part. The first movement had contained two solo cadenzas\, the second of which was possibly inspired by Bach’s works for unaccompanied violin; it disappeared in the revision. He also shortened the finale. Only the slow movement\, which met with general favor at the premiere\, remains substantially unchanged. (It is always extremely interesting to hear an alternate version of a standard repertory work\, because it gives us an insight into the composer’s own thought processes; fortunately\, we can now make a direct aural comparison between the two versions of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto\, because the original version has now been recorded by violinist Leonidas Kavakos with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra\, under the direction of Osmo Vänskä. The original version was more dramatic\, more rugged\, closer perhaps to the spirit of Beethoven\, and certainly more virtuosic. The final version of the concerto\, which has become established as one of the handful of most popular violin concertos of all time has more of a lyric quality without denying itself a strong symphonic development in the opening movement\, a heartfelt song in the slow movement\, or the wonderful galumphing dance (“evidently a polonaise for polar bears\,” as Donald Francis Tovey once wrote) in the rondo of the finale.  \n\n\n\n\nJohannes Brahms\nSymphony No. 2 in D major\, Opus 73 Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg\, Germany\, on May 7\, 1833\, and died in Vienna on April 3\, 1897. The Symphony No. 2 was composed in 1877\, during a productive summer stay at Pörtschach\, Carinthia (southern Austria). The first performance took place under the direction of Hans Richter in Vienna on December 30\, 1877. The symphony is scored for two each of flutes\, oboes\, clarinets and bassoons\, four horns\, two trumpets\, three trombones\, tuba\, timpani and strings. DURATION IS ABOUT 40 MINUTES. \n\n\n\nIt is a well‑known fact that Brahms put off allowing a symphony to be brought to performance until his forty‑third year\, so aware was he of the giant shadow of Beethoven. But once he had broken the ice\, he did not hesitate to try again. His First Symphony was completed in 1876. The Second came just the following year. Brahms spent the first of three happy and musically-productive summers at Lake Wörth\, near Pörtschach in the southern Austrian province of Carinthia. Between 1877 and 1879\, he composed a major work each summer—the Second Symphony\, the Violin Concerto and the G‑major Violin Sonata. Richter’s performance of the symphony in Vienna was an enormous success\, and it received similar acclaim in Leipzig two weeks later.  (To be sure\, Vienna and Leipzig were the centers of the Brahms cult\, with critic Eduard Hanslick in the former and Clara Schumann in the latter.) \n\n\n\nElsewhere\, the notices were more varied. The criticism most frequently encountered was that Brahms’ music was too intellectual\, too calculated\, had too little emotional quality. Today\, most listeners regard Brahms’ Second Symphony as the most spontaneous\, the most sensuous\, a work that pulses with the sounds of nature. It feels much more relaxed than the tense\, driven First Symphony. \n\n\n\nNonetheless\, the Second Symphony is\, if anything\, even more finely precision‑ground than before; the parts fit as in a fine watch. Everything in the first movement grows out of some aspect of its opening phrase and its three component parts: a three‑note “motto” in cellos and basses\, the arpeggiated horn call\, and a rising scale figure in the woodwinds. One of the loveliest moments in the first movement occurs at the arrival of the second theme in violas and cellos\, a melting waltz tune that is first cousin to Brahms’s famous Lullaby. \n\n\n\nThe second movement\, a rather dark reaction to the sunshine of the first\, begins with a stepwise melody rising in the bassoons against a similar melody descending in the cellos\, the two ideas mirroring each other. Rising and falling in slow\, graceful shapes\, each grows organically into rich and sinuous patterns. \n\n\n\nBeethoven would have written a scherzo for his third movement. Brahms avoids direct comparison by writing more of a lyrical intermezzo\, though shaped like a scherzo with two trios. A serenading 3/4 melody in the oboe opens the main section\, which is twice interrupted by Presto sections in different meters\, the first in 2/4\, the second in 3/8 time. A century ago this was regarded as “the giddy fancies of a wayward humor.” It makes sense\, though\, when we realize that each interruption is a variation and further development of the oboe tune. \n\n\n\nThe final Allegro is as close‑knit as the first movement and is based on thematic ideas that can ultimately be traced back to the very beginning of the symphony\, including the motto figure. Here Brahms’ lavish invention makes familiar ideas sound fresh in new relationships. The great miracle of the Second Symphony is that it sounds so easy and immediate\, yet turns out to be so elaborately shaped\, richly repaying the most concentrated study\, yet offering immediate delight to the casual listener.  \n\n\n\n\n\n© Steven Ledbetter (www.stevenledbetter.com) URL:https://www.srsymphony.org/event/shadows-and-sunshine/ CATEGORIES:Classical Series END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTSTAMP:20260420T030200 CREATED:20190204T173532Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240119T201928Z UID:24840-1705536000-1705536000@www.srsymphony.org SUMMARY:Mozart's Swan Song DESCRIPTION:Plan Your Visit\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series \n \n \n\n Directions & More \n \n \n\n Seating Map \n \n \n\n Before the Concert \n \n \n\n At the Concert \n \n \n\n Dining & Hotels URL:https://www.srsymphony.org/event/mozarts-swan-song/ CATEGORIES:Classical Series END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTSTAMP:20260420T030200 CREATED:20190204T173418Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240119T223104Z UID:24838-1705536000-1705536000@www.srsymphony.org SUMMARY:Unmasking the Stars DESCRIPTION:Learn about the music on the program\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nConcert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong\n\n\n\nConcert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall. \n\n\n\n\nSaturday\, October 5\, 2019 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\nSunday\, October 6\, 2019 at 2:00 PM\n\n\n\nMonday\, October 7\, 2019 at 6:30 PM \n\n\n\n\nListen to this concert’s music on Spotify\n\n\n\nMusic selections handpicked by Francesco! \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPlan Your Visit\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series \n \n \n\n Directions & More \n \n \n\n Seating Map \n \n \n\n Before the Concert \n \n \n\n At the Concert \n \n \n\n Dining & Hotels \n \n \n \n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSponsored by Jim LambConductor Francesco Lecce-Chong underwritten by Norma Person\, In memory of Evert Person Guest Artist Garrick Ohlsson underwritten by Marcia Wagner\, In memory of Hap WagnerDiscovery Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre -Concert Talks Sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard GrundyVideo underwritten by Chuck & Ellen Wear \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOctober 2019 Program Notes by Steven Ledbetter\n\n\n\n\nAnna Clyne\nMasquerade for OrchestraAnna Clyne was born in London on March 9\, 1980\, and currently resides in the United States. The first performance of Masquerade\, commissioned by the BBC for the Last Night of the Proms in 2013\, took place at the Royal Albert Hall on September 7\, 2013; Marin Alsop conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The score calls for two flutes and piccolo\, two oboes and English horn\, two clarinets and bass clarinet\, two bassoons and contrabassoon\, four horns\, three trumpets\, three trombones\, tuba\, timpani (plus tambourine)\, three percussionists playing bass drum\, two suspended and two sizzle cymbals\, castanets\, three kazoos\, side drum\, two cowbells\, crash cymbals\, motor horn\, whip\, tom-tom\, suspended cymbals (with brushes)\, ratchet\, vibraslap\, triangle and harp (with two guitar picks or plastic cards) and strings. Duration is about 6 minutes. \n\n\n\nAnna Clyne began composing before entering her teens. She studied music at the University of Edinburgh\, graduating with honors\, then continued with a master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music. She has attracted the attention of conductors\, including Ricardo Muti at the Chicago Symphony\, who chose her\, along with Mason Bates\, to be co-composers in residence in Chicago from 2010 to 2014.  \n\n\n\nAfter that\, Marin Alsop invited her to be composer-in-residence at the Baltimore Symphony. \n\n\n\nHer work is highly picturesque\, filled with color and energy\, as Masquerade is from the first gesture\, a rushing whirlwind of sound\, suggesting a wildly diverse group of colorful people\, possibly in disguise\, so that they can behave with joyous disregard for polite behavior. For a few seconds the hullabaloo relaxes to bright\, sweet charms\, before the joyous madhouse begins again. \n\n\n\nThe composer provided the following commentary for the first performance: \n\n\n\nMasquerade draws inspiration from the original mid-18th century promenade concerts held in London’s pleasure gardens. As is true today\, these concerts were a place where people from all walks of life mingled to enjoy a wide array of music. Other forms of entertainment ranged from the sedate to the salacious with acrobatics\, exotic street entertainers\, dancers\, fireworks and masquerades. I am fascinated by the historic and sociological courtship between music and dance. Combined with costumes\, masked guises and elaborate settings\, masquerades created an exciting\, yet controlled\, sense of occasion and celebration. It is this that I wish to evoke in Masquerade.  \n\n\n\nThe work derives its material from two melodies. For the main theme\, I imagined a chorus welcoming the audience and inviting them into their imaginary world. The second theme\, Juice of Barley\, is an old English country dance melody and drinking song\, which first appeared in John Playford’s 1695 edition of The English Dancing Master.   –Anna Clyne \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\nLudwig Van Beethoven\nConcerto No. 4 in G major for Piano and Orchestra\, Opus 58Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized in Bonn\, Germany\, on December 17\, 1770\, and died in Vienna on March 26\, 1827. The Fourth Piano Concerto was composed in 1805 and early 1806 (it was probably completed by spring\, for the composer’s brother offered it to a publisher on March 27). The first performance was a private one\, in March 1807\, in the home of Prince Lobkowitz\, and the public premiere took place in Vienna on December 22\, 1808\, with the composer as soloist. In addition to the solo piano\, the score calls for one flute\, two oboes\, two clarinets\, two bassoons\, two horns and strings; two trumpets and timpani are added in the final movement.Duration is about 34 minutes. \n\n\n\nDuring the years immediately following the composition and private first performance of the Eroica Symphony\, ideas for new compositions crowded the composer’s sketchbooks\, and he completed one important work after another in rapid succession—an opera\, three piano sonatas\, three concertos\, three string quartets\, the Fourth symphony and preliminary work on the Fifth. Truly a heady outpouring of extraordinary music—and among these\, the Piano Concerto No. 4 is among the most original. \n\n\n\nThe very beginning is one of the most memorable of any concerto. Beethoven establishes the presence of the soloist at once—not with brilliant self-assertion (he was to do that in the Emperor concerto)\, but with gentle insinuation\, a quiet phrase demanding an orchestral response. But the orchestra is both quiet and startling\, seeming to come in an entirely unexpected key (though it quickly works back to the expected home base). \n\n\n\nThat remarkable opening is only the first of many fresh\, surprising and treasurable ideas that Beethoven offers in the concerto. At the end of the first movement exposition\, for example\, the soloist works up to an extended trill\, which from long conditioning\, we expect will lead to a fortissimo orchestral close to the section. That close eventually comes\, but not before the pianist coyly inserts a sweetly expressive version of a theme that is otherwise grand and overpowering. And immediately after that\, an unexpected pitch (reiterating the ubiquitous rhythmic pattern which this concerto shares with the Fifth Symphony) marks the beginning of the development. \n\n\n\nIn some ways the middle movement is the biggest surprise of all. Winds are silent; piano and strings are strictly segregated. It seems to demand an explanation. In 1859 a critic\, Adolph Bernhard Marx\, proposed that Beethoven created this movement as the most thoroughgoing program music he ever wrote\, to express the “power of song” by depicting the great singer Orpheus pleading with the Furies to allow him to pass to the netherworld to recover his wife Eurydice. Certainly the orchestral strings\, with their perpetual unison and sharp staccatos throughout avoid any feeling of softness or even humanity\, while the piano (as  Orpheus) pleads with increasing urgency\, finally overcoming the opposition of the strings sufficiently to end their hard unison\, persuading them to melt into harmony. \n\n\n\nThe first movement opened with a harmonic surprise at the orchestra’s entrance; the last movement plays similar games\, first by seeming to start in the “wrong” key\, by way of a link from the closing chord of the second movement. Beethoven uses this unexpected harmony to play many tricks during the course of the finale. Many of the thematic ideas grow from four tiny melodic and rhythmic figures contained in the rondo theme itself. Most of the movement rushes along at a great pace\, but Beethoven also pauses sometimes for moments of delicate and even romantic coloring\, then returns to the fundamental high spirits that close the concerto with some last prankish echoes. \n\n\n\n\nMatt Browne\nHow the Solar System Was Won for Symphony OrchestraMatt Browne was born in 1988 and lives in New York. He composed How the Solar System Was Won in 2012. It was first performed by the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra\, conducted by Rodrigo Ruiz\, on February 10\, 2013. The score calls for three each of flutes (including piccolo)\, oboe (including English horn)\, clarinet (including E-flat clarinet)\, and bassoon (including contrabassoon)\, four horns\, three trumpets\, three trombones (including bass trombone)\, harp\, piano\, timpani and three percussionists\, and strings. During is about seven and a half minutes. \n\n\n\nMatt Browne earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado and his doctorate in composition at the University of Michigan\, studying with Michael Daugherty\, Kristin Kuster\, Carter Pann\, and Daniel Kellogg. On his website he quotes\, favorably\, the command from impresario Serge Diaghilev to Jean Cocteau: “Astonish me!” It suggests a goal that is surely met in his colorful and dramatic single-movement score that is\, in part\, a reaction to his favorite film\, with a philosophical echo. How the Solar System Was Won offers a frequently-changing series of musical outbursts that suggest excitement\, color and drama. In the note that he has written for the piece\, he describes the various elements that went into his planning for it: \n\n\n\nCommentary by Matt Browne: \n\n\n\n “How the Solar System Was Won” was the working title of the Kubrick classic\, 2001: A Space Odyssey\, my favorite film.  Using the title as an impetus\, this piece is about three very different but related things: one astronomical\, one musical\, and one deeply personal.  \n\n\n\nThe astronomical narrative is about how the solar system became what it is today through the chaotic mess of celestial mechanics and cosmic collisions. Over billions of years\, various gasses\, rocks\, and other debris have interacted with each other in these ways to create this tentative orbital balance we have around us\, still slowly (but consistently) changing.  It is interesting that some of the most recognized astronomical objects (Saturn’s rings\, the asteroid belt\, the moon) came as a direct result of a collision of some sort that has momentarily thrown off the balance that gravitational forces have been working so hard to create. \n\n\n\nThe second narrative deals with my use of musical grooves.  I repeatedly set them up one by one for only a few bars at a time – just before the audience can be lulled into a comfortable\, restful languor (much like an orbit) – and then quickly subvert them in chaotic and surprising ways to make something new and exciting –a musical version of Saturn’s rings. \n\n\n\nThe final narrative is about how the most chaotic and devastating moments in our normally groove-filled lives are what contribute most to shaping our personalities\, and help give us our own personal rings of Saturn. \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\nRichard Strauss\nAlso sprach Zarathustra [Thus Spoke Zarathustra] (tone poem) for Orchestra [after Nietsche]\, Opus 30Richard Strauss was born in Munich on June 11\, 1864\, and died in Garmisch‑Partenkirchen\, Bavaria\, on September 8\, 1949. He began the composition of Also sprach Zarathustra in Munich on February 4\, 1896\, and completed it on August 24. Strauss himself conducted the Municipal Orchestra of Frankfurt-am-Main in the first performance on November 27\, 1896. The score calls for a large orchestra consisting of piccolo\, three flutes (third doubling as second piccolo)\, three oboes\, English horn\, two clarinets plus E‑flat clarinet and bass clarinet\, three bassoons and contrabassoon\, six horns\, four trumpets\, three trombones\, two bass tubas\, timpani\, bass drum\, cymbals\, triangle\, orchestral bells\, a deep bell\, two harps\, organ and strings. Duration is about 33 minutes. \n\n\n\nSurely no major philosopher has ever had a closer relationship to music and musicians than Friedrich Nietzsche\, and no work of philosophy has inspired more musical compositions than his Also sprach Zarathustra. Nietzsche was an excellent pianist and an amateur composer as well\, having turned out a fair number of choral works both sacred and secular\, songs\, and piano pieces by his thirtieth year. \n\n\n\nBut in addition to being drawn to some of the musical questions of the day\, Nietzsche was also a source for music in others. His best‑known essay\, Also sprach Zarathustra (1883-1885)\, served as the basis for songs by Schoenberg\, Delius\, Medtner\, and Taneyev\, as well as larger works by Mahler (Third Symphony)\, Delius (A Mass of Life)\, and Strauss. \n\n\n\nThe essay has an unusually poetic text for a work of philosophy\, loosely narrative in character\, recording the (invented) sayings of Zarathustra (Zoroaster to the Greeks) covering all sorts of diverse topics; each section ends with the formula “Also sprach Zarathustra” (“Thus spoke Zarathustra”).Strauss became acquainted with Nietzsche’s work while reading in preparation for his first opera\, Guntram. What interested him most of all was the philosopher’s criticism of the established church and ultimately of all conventional religion. Strauss was the last composer who could be called an intellectual\, but he made the courageous decision to attempt to deal with Nietzsche’s philosophical ruminations as a symphonic poem. He chose to emphasize one particular theme of the work; he said he wanted “to convey in music an idea of the evolution of the human race from its origin\, through the various phases of development\, religious as well as scientific. \n\n\n\nStrauss conceived one enormous movement that has little in common with the traditional musical forms used in his earlier tone poems. He selected a limited number of section titles from Nietzsche’s work and arranged them in a way that made possible musical variety. The most important of the unifying musical ideas—it comes up again and again—is the use of two keys\, C and B\, whose tonic notes are as close together as they can be melodically\, though harmonically they are very far apart\, to represent the natural world on the one hand and the inquiring spirit of man on the other. Time and again these two tonalities will be heard in close succession—or\, indeed\, even simultaneously. \n\n\n\nThe opening of the tone poem is a magnificent evocation of the primeval sunrise\, with an important three‑note rising figure in the trumpets representing Nature and the most glorious possible cadence in C (alternating major and minor at first before closing solidly in the major). That trumpet theme is the single most important melodic motive of the work. \n\n\n\nImmediately there is a drastic change of mood to the section entitled Von den Hinterweltlern (“On the Afterworldly”)\, the most primitive state of man. Gloomy\, insubstantial phrases soon introduce an important new theme (heard here in B minor) leaping up\, pizzicato\, in cellos and basses; this theme is used throughout to depict man’s inquiring mind. Strauss satirizes those inquiries that lead to religion by quoting the opening phrase of the plainsong Credo in the horns and moves into a lush passage of conventional sweetness for the strings divided into sixteen parts. \n\n\n\nThis leads into Von der großen Sehnsucht (“On the Great Longing”)\, to depict man’s yearning to move beyond ignorance and superstition. The section combines the B minor “inquiring mind” motive with the C major “nature” motive. A vigorous new figure rushes up from the depths of the orchestra\, gradually overpowering everything else. With a harp glissando it sweeps into Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften (“Of Pleasures and Passions”). \n\n\n\nThis section\, in C minor\, links man’s sensual life with Nature (through the key relationship). A passionate new theme followed by an important motive blared out by trombones and heard frequently thereafter\, sometimes identified as the theme of “satiety.” Das Grablied (“The Tomb Song”)\, follows immediately in B minor and related keys. \n\n\n\nIt dies away into the depths as cellos and basses begin a passage in strict imitation labeled Von der Wissenschaft (“On Science”). What could be more scientific than a fugue? And this one begins with the notes of the Nature theme\, in C\, followed immediately by the three notes of the B‑minor triad\, then continuing to all the remaining pitches of the chromatic scale. The imitations work the tonality around to B minor again\, and a new developmental section gets underway\, climaxing in Der Genesende (“The Convalescent”) in which the themes lead up to a powerful C major triple‑forte for full orchestra\, breaking off into pregnant silence. The next chord? B minor\, bringing in an extended new development of several of the major ideas\, treated with extraordinary orchestral virtuosity. \n\n\n\nThis comes to an end in an utterly unexpected way—by turning into a Viennese waltz\, and a waltz in C major at that! For this section Strauss borrows Nietzsche’s title Das Tanzlied (“The Dancing Song”). Here\, for the very first time in Strauss’s life\, he seems ready to take on his older namesakes\, the other Strausses who were renowned as the waltz kings. And here\, already\, we can get more than a tiny glimpse of Der Rosenkavalier\, still some sixteen years in the future. This waltz begins as an amiable and graceful dance with a theme based on the Nature motive\, but it soon builds in energy and vehemence\, as many of the earlier themes make their appearance\, only to be destroyed in turn by the “satiety” motive\, which takes over fiercely at the climax of the score (corresponding to a similar climax in the book)\, as a great bell tolls twelve times. \n\n\n\nStrauss marks this passage in the score Nachtwandlerlied (“Night Wanderer’s Song”). The bell rings every four measures\, ever more softly\, as the music settles onto a chord of C major\, only to slip\, with magical effect\, into a gentle\, bright B major for the coda\, in which the violins present a sweet theme representing “spiritual freedom.” \n\n\n\nThis luminous B is softly but insistently undercut by cellos and basses\, pizzicato\, with the rising three‑note “Nature” motive\, as if to say: Earth—the natural world—abides in spite of all. Four more times the upper instruments reiterate their chord of B\, only to find that the bottom strings repeat the C with quiet obstinacy\, finally bringing the work to an end. \n\n\n\n\n\n© Steven Ledbetter (www.stevenledbetter.com) URL:https://www.srsymphony.org/event/unmasking-the-stars/ CATEGORIES:Classical Series END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240118T000000 DTSTAMP:20260420T030200 CREATED:20190204T080000Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240124T133525Z UID:24839-1705536000-1705536000@www.srsymphony.org SUMMARY:Master of the Modern Banjo DESCRIPTION:On Stage Comments at Nov. 2-4 Concerts After Wildfires & Outages \n\n\n\nLearn about the Music on the program\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n“…winning Grammy Awards for country and jazz in the same year and also winning in pop\, world music\, classical crossover and\, yes\, folk. That’s a lot of territory for five strings.”  – The New York Times \n\n\n\nConcert Conversations with Francesco Lecce-Chong\n\n\n\nConcert Conversations are general seating and free to Classical Series concert ticket holders. Approximately 30 minutes in Weill Hall. \n\n\n\n\nSaturday\, November 2\, 2019 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\nSunday\, November 3\, 2019 at 2:00 PM\n\n\n\nMonday\, November 4\, 2019 at 6:30 PM\n\n\n\n\nListen to this concert’s music on Spotify\n\n\n\nMusic selections handpicked by Francesco! \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\nPlan Your Visit\n\n\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n Learn more about the Discovery Rehearsal Series \n \n \n\n Directions & More \n \n \n\n Seating Map \n \n \n\n Before the Concert \n \n \n\n At the Concert \n \n \n\n Dining & Hotels \n \n \n \n \n \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWe gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions from the following:\n\n\n\nSponsored by Joseph A. and Judith M. Gappa      Conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong underwritten by David and Corinne ByrdGuest Artist Béla Fleck underwritten by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardDiscovery Rehearsal Series sponsored by The Stare Foundation and David Stare of Dry Creek VineyardPre -Concert Talks Sponsored by Jamei Haswell and Richard GrundyVideo underwritten by Chuck & Ellen Wear \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNovember 2019 Program Notes By Steven Ledbetter\n\n\n\n\nAaron Copland\nFour Dance Episodes from Rodeo for OrchestraAaron Copland was born in Brooklyn\, New York\, on November 14\, 1900\, and died in New York City on December 2\, 1990. He wrote the ballet Rodeo on a commission from the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo\, composing it in Stockbridge\, Massachusetts\, between May and September 1942. The work was premiered at the (old) Metropolitan Opera House on October 16 that year\, with Franz Allers conducting. Agnes de Mille choreographed and danced the lead role. The concert piece “Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo” comprises all but about five minutes of the full ballet. The score calls for three flutes (second and third doubling piccolo)\, two oboes and English horn\, two clarinets and bass clarinet\, two bassoons\, four horns\, three trumpets\, three trombones\, tuba\, timpani\, xylophone\, glockenspiel\, cymbals\, wood block\, snare drum\, slapstick\, bass drum\, triangle\, celesta\, piano\, harp and strings. Duration is about 18 minutes. Rodeo is the second of the three popular Copland ballets on American subjects\, but it is one that Copland did not\, at first\, look forward to composing. Billy the Kid\, composed for Eugene Loring and the Ballet Caravan\, had achieved a great success in 1938. Four years later\, as the composer recalls in Copland: 1900 through 1942\, conductor Franz Allers took him to meet Agnes de Mille\, who had an idea for a ballet. \n\n\n\nWhen de Mille explained that she wanted to create a cowboy ballet\, Copland said he had already written one of those and didn’t want to repeat himself. But “Agnes was after something lighter and more bouncy\,” he recalled\, after she demonstrated some of the steps she was planning to use. So\, he agreed. He began composing in May 1942 and had much of the score in his head already before leaving to spend the summer at Tanglewood. \n\n\n\nIt was the war that gave Agnes de Mille the opportunity to create the ballet. The management of the Ballet Russe decided that an American subject and an American choreographer might be a good patriotic idea. The Russian-trained dancers required extra rehearsals\, because their Russian classical training had not prepared them for cowboy lopes and folk‑dance groupings. In addition\, they needed to have the humor of the piece explained to them. But they got it\, and the ballet was a huge success. The company gave seventy‑nine performances in the first year alone. \n\n\n\nRodeo tells a simple story with warmth and humor. The tomboyish heroine on a western ranch is pining for the handsome head wrangler\, but\, despite her skill with horse and rope\, he pays no attention to her. When the cowgirl is thrown by a bucking bronco\, the city girls who have come to the ranch for the evening’s party tease her\, while the head wrangler goes off with the rancher’s daughter. At the Saturday night dance\, still in her ranch clothes\, she is unnoticed until she turns in her chaps and cowboy boots for a pretty dress and a bow in her hair. When she returns\, looking just as pretty as any of the other girls\, she turns all heads—especially that of the head wrangler. But when he invites her to dance\, she turns him down in favor of another cowhand who had been friendly before her transformation. (In an interview late in her life\, de Mille said\, “You can’t imagine some of the letters people have had the idiocy to write me—one said that Women’s Lib should take action against this ballet! Well\, in 1895 or 1900 a woman had to have a man or she was considered an outcast and became the family drudge.”) \n\n\n\nAs with Billy the Kid\, Copland chose real cowboy songs as part of the basic material of his ballet\, though here\, too\, he does more than simply quote them literally. Rodeo gives him the opportunity to treat the tunes with welcome humor\, emphasizing certain details to make them stand out. Early in the first movement\, “Buckaroo Holiday\,” Copland treats part of the tune “Sis Joe” to irregular drum punctuation to emphasize its energetic and clipped character. Later on\, the solo trombone plays “If he’d be a buckaroo by his trade” with humorous portamentos and witty exaggerated pauses. (Copland found both these tunes in Our Singing Country by John and Alan Lomax.) The second movement\, “Corral Nocturne” has no borrowed tunes. “Saturday Night Waltz” begins with the sound of country fiddlers tuning up\, then offers a danceable near-quotation of “Goodbye\, old Paint.” The final “Hoe Down” is based on the traditional fiddle tune “Bonyparte” (along with a brief citation of “McLeod’s Reel”); Copland found the tunes in Ira Ford’s Traditional Music of America. \n\n\n\nIn Rodeo\, as in Billy the Kid\, Copland uses the old tunes to give a melodic “feel\,” a way of evoking the specific time and place. But his score is far more than a simple orchestration of a couple of old songs; he takes over the tunes fully\, developing and elaborating them with wit\, rhythmic verve\, and varied orchestral color\, transmuting them fully into the characteristic and instantly recognizable musical personality that we know as Aaron Copland.  \n\n\n\n\nBéla Fleck\nJuno Concerto for Banjo and OrchestraBéla Anton LeoÅ¡ Fleck was born in New York City on July 10\, 1958\, his three given names paying homage to three 20thcentury composers\, Bartók\, Webern and JanáÄ_x008d_ek. He composed the Juno Concerto for the Canton Symphony\, Gerhardt Zimmermann\, conductor\, and played the solo part in the first performance on March 19\, 2016. In addition to the solo banjo\, the score calls for two flutes and piccolo\, two oboes and English horn\, two clarinets\, two bassoons and contrabassoon\, two horns\, two trumpets\, two tenor trombones and bass trombone\, timpani\, three percussionists (vibraphone\, maraca\, shaker\, tambourine\, bass drum\, gong\, tenor drum\, side drum\, suspended cymbals\, claves\, crash cymbals\, triangle\, chimes) and strings. Duration is about 30 minutes. \n\n\n\nThe banjo has traditionally been regarded as an instrument created for folk music\, originating in Africa and being further developed once it was brought by enslaved Africans to the New World. Over the centuries\, the banjo has been a frequent part of ensembles performing traditional dance and country music\, gradually spreading into different categories. Fleck developed an interest in the banjo\, first of all from hearing the theme of the television show Beverly Hillbillies\, which featured Earl Scruggs. After getting a banjo as a present on his fifteenth birthday\, he studied—largely through books by Pete Seeger and others. After graduating from New York’s High School of Music and Art\, he began what has been a busy and varied career playing the banjo in all kinds of ensembles\, becoming a highly regarded soloist on the instrument and increasingly recognized as a composer\, including partnerships with various classical composers\, with whom he joins his banjo. \n\n\n\nThe Juno Concerto is his second concerto for banjo and orchestra\, named after his son\, Juno. It is cast in the traditional three movements. The first opens with fanfares and open harmonies that recall\, in a way\, the music of Aaron Copland\, especially his cowboy ballet Billy the Kid. The banjo solo is playful\, anticipating and echoing the orchestral themes. It becomes increasingly virtuosic in the second half of the opening movement.The middle movement begins with a kind of hesitating vamp in the banjo\, to which sustained low tones in the orchestral strings add depth. Soon the banjo begins suggesting a gentle dancelike figure that is developed into a cadenza-like middle passage for the soloist. The last half of the movement offers poignant themes\, especially with the winds in dialogue with the banjo.The orchestra sets up a fast opening for the finale\, building quickly to a climax on which the banjo enters with racing figures that bring the various sections of the orchestra in an energetic debate that continues to a dynamic climax.  \n\n\n\n\nModest Mussorgsky (maurice Ravel\, Arranger)\nPictures at an Exhibition for OrchestraModest Petrovich Mussorgsky was born at Karevo\, district of Pskov\, on March 21\, 1839\, and died in St. Petersburg on March 28\, 1881. He composed Pictures at an Exhibition as a suite of piano pieces in June 1874. Maurice Ravel made his orchestral transcription in the summer of 1922\, for Serge Koussevitzky\, who introduced it at one of his own concerts in Paris on October 22\, 1922. Ravel’s orchestration calls for two flutes and piccolo\, two oboes and English horn\, two clarinets and bass clarinet\, two bassoons and contrabassoon\, alto saxophone\, four horns\, three trumpets\, three trombones\, tuba\, timpani\, glockenspiel\, bells\, triangle\, tam-tam\, rattle\, whip\, cymbals\, side drum\, bass drum\, xylophone\, celesta\, two harps and strings. Duration is about 35 minutes. \n\n\n\nMussorgsky’s music is the triumph of genius over technique. Though he had possibly the least formal training of any of the Russian “Five” (nationalist composers—including also Cui\, Balakirev\, Borodin\, and Rimsky-Korsakov—who sought to create a purely Russian musical style) and was regarded as little more than a dilettante by composers of far greater polish\, Mussorgsky had a burning originality that at times was able to conquer both his lack of technique and a sad addiction to the bottle that led to an unstable life and an early demise. His genius expressed itself most directly in opera\, for he had the ability to translate verbal and physical gestures into extraordinarily imaginative\, lifelike music. \n\n\n\nHis best-known\, non-operatic composition is the suite Pictures at an Exhibition for piano solo\, one of the great achievements of Russian nationalism. Even here Mussorgsky was inspired by a kind of dramatic event. The exhibition in question was a real one\, a memorial showing of works by an architect named Victor Hartman\, who had died at the age of forty in July 1873. Mussorgsky was a close friend of the artist. \n\n\n\nThe news of Hartman’s death shocked Vladimir Stasov\, critic and spokesman for a whole generation of Russian artists and friend to both Mussorgsky and Hartman. At Stasov’s initiative\, a special exhibition of Hartman’s work was put together in St. Petersburg\, where it opened in early 1874. The exhibition had a powerful effect on Mussorgsky. Within a week of seeing it\, he wrote to Stasov with good news: “Hartman is boiling as Boris boiled.” This was his way to say that he was deeply involved in composition and that it was going well. He continued: “Sounds and ideas have been hanging in the air; I am devouring them and stuffing myself—I barely have time to scribble them on paper…My profile can be seen in the interludes…How well it is working out.”Composing at a terrific pace\, Mussorgsky finished the work by June 22. The suite was immediately hailed by his friends\, particularly Stasov\, to whom he dedicated it. Yet few people played the suite; it is fiendishly difficult. Pictures only became famous and popular in the brilliant orchestral guise created by Maurice Ravel in 1922 at the suggestion of conductor Serge Koussevitzky.  The various “pictures” are linked here and there by references to the opening Promenade\, which\, as Mussorgsky reported\, was his own self-portrait\, “roving through the exhibition\, now leisurely\, now briskly in order to come close to a picture that had attracted his attention\, and at times sadly\, thinking of his departed friend.” Most of the pictures are lost\, but we haveStasov’s description of the exhibition to tell us about them. \n\n\n\nThe Gnome was a grotesque drawing for a child’s toy\, “something in the style of the fabled Nutcracker\, the nuts being inserted into the gnome’s mouth.”  [Promenade] The Old Castle depicted an Italian landscape with a troubadour singing his lay. Ravel makes this an extended saxophone solo\, one of the most famous passages for that instrument in the orchestral repertory. [Promenade] Tuileries\, a Parisian scene\, showed children quarreling at play in the famous gardens\, an image perfectly captured in the taunting musical figure (the universal children’s cry of “Nyah\, nyah!”). Bydlo is the Polish word for “cattle”; Hartman’s picture showed a heavy ox‑cart lumbering along. [Promenade] The unlikely sounding Ballet of unhatched chicks consisted of designs for an 1871 ballet with choreography by Petipa\, who always included a scene with child dancers. In this case the children were dressed as canaries “enclosed in eggs as in suits of armor\, with canary heads put on like helmets.” \n\n\n\nSamuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle: Mussorgsky himself owned Hartman’s drawings (two separate images\, not one) of “A rich Jew wearing a fur hat” and “A poor Jew.” He transmuted these into a single movement\, contrasting the arrogance of wealth to the cringing obsequiousness of poverty.[Promenade] Hartman’s lively drawing of The Market at Limoges becomes a brilliant scherzo\, for which he even imagined some of the conversation of the shopping housewives\, for he entered bits of their dialogue in the margin of the score. The scherzo ends with dramatic suddenness in the powerful contrasting scene of the Catacombs (A Roman Sepulchre) in Paris. Mussorgsky noted in the margin: “The creative spirit of the dead Hartman leads me toward skulls\, apostrophizes them—the skulls are illuminated gently from within.”  The mood is continued in the passage headed Con mortuis in lingua morta (“With the dead in a dead language”)\, in which Musorgsky himself becomes our guide through the city of the dead with a ghostly version of his Promenade. The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba Yaga) evokes the fearsome witch of Russian fairy tales; Mussorgsky’s music suggests rather the witch’s wild flight in a mortar in chase of her victims. Her ride brings us to the powerful finale of the suite\, The Bogatyr Gate (at Kiev\, the Ancient Capital)\, described by Stasov as “unusually original\,” a design for a series of arched stone gates to replace the wooden city gates to commemorate Tsar Alexander II’s from an attempted assassination.  Mussorgsky filled his musical image with the perpetual ringing of bells large and small\, recreating the sounds heard around a Russian public monument\, and Ravel has seconded him in this\, capping off the score with sonorous fireworks. \n\n\n\n\n\n© Steven Ledbetter (www.stevenledbetter.com) URL:https://www.srsymphony.org/event/master-of-the-modern-banjo/ CATEGORIES:Classical Series END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR