ESTHER YOO VIOLIN

from 2022-2023 Masterworks V

by ASO - Annapolis Symphony Orchestra

JOSÉ-LUIS NOVO

Esther began playing the violin at four years old and made her concerto debut aged eight. At 16 she became the youngest prizewinner of the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition and two years later was one of the youngest ever prizewinners of the Queen Elisabeth Competition. In 2014 she became a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and in 2018 was selected as one of Classic FM’s Top 30 Artists under 30. In 2020 WQXR named her one of 20 “Artists to Watch.”

She performs with leading conductors—including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Myung-Whun Chung, Vasily Petrenko, Thierry Fischer, Karina Canellakis, and Andrew Davis—and orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. She has performed at a range of prominent festivals, including BBC Proms and Aspen Music Festival, and has appeared in recital at Lincoln Center and Wigmore Hall.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra appointed her as their inaugural Artist-in-Residence in 2018, through which she participated extensively in educational and outreach projects, alongside concert performances in London and across the UK.

Esther has recorded the Sibelius, Glazunov, Tchaikovsky, and—most recently—Barber and Bruch concertos for Deutsche Grammophon. She featured prominently on the soundtrack and accompanying disc of the feature film On Chesil Beach and is a guest artist on pianist Chad Lawson’s album breathe, both released by Decca Records and recorded at Abbey Road Studios.

Deutsche Grammophon has also released two recordings by the Z.E.N. Trio, which she founded together with fellow BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists Zhang Zuo and Narek Hakhnazaryan, and which tours widely in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The first album includes works by Brahms and Dvo ˇ rák, and is followed by Burning Through the Cold featuring piano trios by Shostakovich, Babajanyan, Rachmaninoff, and Khachaturian.

Esther has curated a two-hour special programme for BBC Radio 3 and is a frequent contributor to BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone, The Arts Desk, and The Strad, which featured her on the cover of its August 2021 edition. She writes not only about repertoire and practice techniques, but also about less commonly explored areas, such as the mental health and wider wellbeing of musicians.

ESTHER BEHZAD RANJBARAN, B. 1955

Violinist and composer Behzad Ranjbaran began his formal music education at age nine when he entered the Tehran Conservatory of Music. Although he describes the mid-20th century under the Shah as “the golden age of classical music,” he was imprisoned for a short while because he possessed books with “wrong” ideas. He left Iran for the United States in 1974 to pursue his violin studies at Indiana University, continuing at Juilliard for a doctorate in performance and composition. In an interview, he admitted that his politics had made it difficult for him, even before the Islamic revolution of 1979: “I was politically active so I had difficulty staying in Iran. I was very concerned about social justice and political freedom, and was actually imprisoned for a few months as a political prisoner. I met other political prisoners who were brutally tortured and eventually executed, so that made a great impression on me.”

Now on the faculty at Juilliard, Ranjbaran teaches Music Theory and Analysis. He has been a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, as well as a Charles Ives Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

While Ranjbaran's music is rooted in neo-Romanticism, it is strongly influenced by non-Western, especially Persian, classical music. Ranjbaran composed Esther in 2015 on commission from the Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra. He found inspiration in the Biblical story of Esther, in which cunning and bravery saved Persia's Jews.

In an interview at the time of the premiere, Ranjbaran commented that “...in modern societies, science has to validate much of our concepts, but I find legends and ancient stories—biblical and non-biblical—reflect a sense of mysticism that is a fine line between visible and invisible. So as much as I value the scientific approach to events and social interactions, the ancient stories and legends have more room for interpretation.”

In his program notes, Ranjbaran writes: “According to the Bible, Es- ther was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus. She is known for saving the Jewish people from a genocidal plot concocted by Haman, a high court official. Her successful appeal to King Ahasuerus stopped the impending massacre and resulted in punishment for the conspirators.” Esther's heroism during this event became the basis for the Feast of Purim, a Jewish tradition which continues to be observed in the present day.

“Much of the story of Esther takes place in Susa, the ancient capital of Persia famed for its magnificent buildings and beautiful gardens. My music doesn’t follow the Biblical narrative scene by scene; rather it is a reflection on Susa, Esther's character, the Feast of Purim, and the story's themes of bravery, tolerance, conspiracy, and compassion.

“The first movement, The Seven Trumpets of the Gates of Susa, refers to the splendid city of Susa mentioned in the Bible and many historical sources. Seven is a mythological number, for example: the seven seas, skies, and the days of the week. This symbolic number plays an important role in the organization of the musical materials, rhythm, and the structure of the piece. New sections often begin with a simultaneous stroke of tam-tam [large gong] and bells, each time a step higher. The movement culminates with a brass fanfare again emphasizing the number seven.

“The second movement, “The Enchanting Gardens of Susa”, is mostly nocturnal in character with a seven-note motif heard at the beginning. Some of the movement's highlights are the improvisational characteristics exhibited in the extended solo passages played by the English horn, trumpet, and the harp.

“The third movement, “The Morning Star”, begins with the brass fanfare from the end of the first movement. Some sources indicate that Esther was considered to be a derivative of Ishtar, an ancient Mesopotamian goddess and the morning star. The sound of shofar (ram’s horn) played by the horns and the joyous character of the Purim celebration permeate throughout the movement.”

VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 1 IN D MAJOR, OP. 19 SERGEI PROKOFIEV, 1891-1953

The year 1917 was a traumatic one for Russia. The February Revolution deposed the Tsar, and the October Revolution brought the Bolsheviks to power. Russia was losing disastrously in its war against the central powers, Germany and Austria. Sergei Prokofiev, shutting himself off from the earthshattering turmoil around him, distanced himself physically as much as possible from the political turmoil. It was for him an exceptionally fruitful year, one of the products being the Violin Concerto No. 1. The Concerto had been one of the few things the composer took with him when he left Russia early in 1918, leaving most of his manuscripts for safekeeping either in Moscow with conductor Serge Koussevitzky or with his mother in Petrograd. Still, most of these works were lost during the desperate times of the civil war.

Envisioned as a modest violin concertino two years earlier, the Concerto gradually grew in scope and complexity. Prokofiev combined the harsh dissonances and spiky melodies that had so scandalized his professors at the Moscow Conservatory with romantic passages of elegant lyricism. Because of the political upheaval, however, he was forced to shelve it until 1923 when it premiered in Paris.

The first movement, during which the violin plays almost continuously, is designed as an arch. It opens on a tremolo in the middle strings, over which the soloist soon enters with the movement’s long, serpentine first theme, accompanied first by a solo flute, then by a pair of clarinets, and finally the strings and the orchestra. With a gradual increase in tempo, the Concerto spins out a series of subsidiary themes, some of them recalling Russian folk melodies and dances. Then, the tremolo—now in the cellos and basses—and the first theme is repeated with altered orchestration to gently conclude the movement.

The Scherzo represents the “savage” Prokofiev of the piano works of the period. It has two trios, between which the Scherzo theme is used as a refrain. In the Scherzo proper the soloist plays a jagged theme high in its range against a rapid “clockwork” accompaniment in the pizzicato violins. The first trio drops the range suddenly for both soloist and orchestra, now against a pizzicato accompaniment in the low strings. The brass announce the second trio, in which the violin again plays low in its range.

The finale takes up the “clockwork” accompaniment from the Scherzo, only this time with staccato bowing and a return to the more lyrical tone of the opening of the Concerto. The Concerto concludes not with the expected flourish, but with gentle conversations among the violin, harp, and solo winds and a whisper on the flute.

SYMPHONY NO. 2 IN D MAJOR, OP. 73 JOHANNES BRAHMS, 1833-1897

Unsure of his ability to compose symphonies, Brahms took 14 years to finish his first in 1876. Its critical and popular success, while far from overwhelming, gave him the confidence to try his hand at a symphony again, and this time with much greater assurance; thus, it took him just a few months in the summer and fall of 1877 to compose his Second Symphony. Brahms spent the summer of 1877 in Pörtschach, an out-of-the-way village in the Austrian countryside, from where he wrote to Vienna’s chief music critic, Eduard Hanslick, “So many melodies fly about, one must be careful not to step on them.” The symphony’s sunny spirit—especially the last two movements—and relatively transparent orchestration harks back to the young Brahms of the two orchestral Serenades (1856–60) and has less of the dense orchestration that permeates much of Brahms’s symphonic writing. It induced one of the composer’s friends to exclaim: “It is all rippling streams, blue sky, sunshine, and cool green shadows. How beautiful it must be at Pörtschach!”

Brahms kept all but his closest friends in the dark about the character of the new work, hinting that it was tragic, somber, dirge-like, and—adding facetiously—would require the orchestra members to wear black crêpe armbands. The premiere in Vienna on Dec. 30, 1877, under the baton of Hans Richter, was an unqualified success, and the ebullient third movement had to be repeated at the insistence of the enthusiastic audience.

The first movement begins gently, only gradually building in dramatic intensity. The opening three notes in the cellos and basses represent a three-note motivic element (motto) that pervades the first movement sometimes in the melody, at other times as an accompanying figure. Yet, offsetting this persistent kernel is a considerable array of themes, some of which find the little motive embedded within them. The second theme is one of the symphony's darker moments and becomes the heart of the development section. Nevertheless, good weather prevails by the end with a gentle coda recalling the motto and ending with a restatement of the first theme.

Like the preceding movement, the Adagio non troppo is packed with melodies, but this time the sunshine pretty much stays behind the clouds from the start. Here Brahms breaks down his longer themes into fragments, using the three-note motto from the first movement as well.

The third movement opens with a beautiful Allegretto grazioso solo for the reed woodwinds, accompanied by pizzicato cellos. In an unusual move, Brahms uses the main theme again in the trio – only speeded up to presto and in 2/4 time instead of 3/4. The repeat of the first part is a free variation with only brief reprises of the original woodwind melody.

The finale, the most festive movement Brahms ever wrote, begins with a gray sotto voce (subdued) rhythmic variation of the three-note motto from the opening movement, once again in the cellos and basses. Here Brahms incorporates it into the beginning of the principal theme. The mood becomes gradually more excited, and the Symphony concludes in blazing optimism with a trumpet fanfare.

Program notes by:

Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn

Wordpros@mindspring.com www.wordprosmusic.com

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ESTHER YOO VIOLIN

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JOSÉ-LUIS NOVO

ESTHER BEHZAD RANJBARAN, B. 1955

VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 1 IN D MAJOR, OP. 19 SERGEI PROKOFIEV, 1891-1953

SYMPHONY NO. 2 IN D MAJOR, OP. 73 JOHANNES BRAHMS, 1833-1897

Ensuring a Legacy of Musical Excellence for Future Generations

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JOSÉ-LUIS NOVO

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2022-2023 Masterworks V