Program Notes: Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6

CLASSICS 2023/24 TCHAIKOVSKY SYMPHONY NO. 6 WITH PETER OUNDJIAN PERFORMED BY YOUR COLORADO SYMPHONY PETER OUNDJIAN, conductor JASON SHAFER, clarinet Friday, November 3, 2023 at 7:30pm Saturday, November 4, 2023 at 7:30pm Sunday, November 5, 2023 at 1:00pm Boettcher Concert Hall

BEETHOVEN Egmont: Overture

JOHN CORIGLIANO Clarinet Concerto I. Cadenzas II. Elegy III. Antiphonal Toccata — INTERMISSION — TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, “Pathetique” I. Adagio – Allegro non troppo II. Allegro con grazia III. Allegro molto vivace IV. Finale: Adagio lamentoso CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 55 MINUTES INCLUDING A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION

FIRST TIME TO THE SYMPHONY? SEE PAGE 7 OF THIS PROGRAM FOR FAQ’S TO MAKE YOUR EXPERIENCE GREAT!

Friday's concert is dedicated to Paul Ruttum & Elyse Tipton, Dr. Christopher Ott, and Jennifer Heglin Saturday’s concert is dedicated to Paul & Normie Voillequé PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY

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PROGRAM I

CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES

PHOTO: DALE WILCOX

PETER OUNDJIAN, conductor Recognized as a masterful and dynamic presence in the conducting world, Peter Oundjian has developed a multi-faceted portfolio as a conductor, violinist, professor and artistic advisor. He has been celebrated for his musicality, an eye towards collaboration, innovative programming, leadership and training with students and an engaging personality.

Strengthening his ties to Colorado, Oundjian is now Principal Conductor of the Colorado Symphony in addition to Music Director of the Colorado Music Festival, which successfully pivoted to a virtual format during the pandemic summers of 2020 and 2021.

Now carrying the title Conductor Emeritus, Oundjian’s fourteen-year tenure as Music Director of the Toronto Symphony served as a major creative force for the city of Toronto and was marked by a reimagining of the TSO’s programming, international stature, audience development, touring and a number of outstanding recordings, garnering a Grammy nomination in 2018 and a Juno award for Vaughan Williams’ Orchestral Works in 2019. He led the orchestra on several international tours to Europe and the USA, conducting the first performance by a North American orchestra at Reykjavik’s Harpa Hall in 2014.

From 2012-2018, Oundjian served as Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra during which time he implemented the kind of collaborative programming that has become a staple of his directorship. Oundjian led the RSNO on several international tours, including North America, China, and a European festival tour with performances at the Bregenz Festival, the Dresden Festival as well as in Innsbruck, Bergamo, Ljubljana, and others. His final appearance with the orchestra as their Music Director was at the 2018 BBC Proms where he conducted Britten’s epic War Requiem.

Highlights of past seasons include appearances with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Iceland Symphony, the Detroit, Atlanta, Saint Louis, Baltimore, Dallas, Seattle, Indianapolis, Milwaukee and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. With the onset of world-wide concert cancellations, support for students at Yale and Juilliard became a priority. In the 2022/2023 season, Oundjian conducted the opening weekend of Atlanta Symphony, followed by return engagements with Baltimore, Indianapolis, Dallas, Colorado and Toronto symphonies, as well as a visit to New World Symphony.

Oundjian has been a visiting professor at Yale University’s School of Music since 1981, and in 2013 was awarded the school’s Sanford Medal for Distinguished Service to Music. A dedicated educator, Oundjian regularly conducts the Yale, Juilliard, Curtis and New World symphony orchestras.

An outstanding violinist, Oundjian spent fourteen years as the first violinist for the renowned Tokyo String Quartet before he turned his energy towards conducting.

PROGRAM II

C O LO R A D O S Y M P H O N Y.O R G

CLASSICS BIOGRAPHIES JASON SHAFER, clarinet Jason Shafer joined the Colorado Symphony as Principal Clarinet at the start of the 2013- 2014 season. Previously, he performed for four years as a fellow with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, FL. He received his Bachelor of Music with Highest Distinction from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where he studied with Kenneth Grant. His other major musical influences include Mark Nuccio, Burt Hara, and Dr. Kyle Coughlin.

Jason has appeared in guest principal roles with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Cincinnati Symphony; he is also Principal Clarinet at the Sun Valley Music Festival, where he has been a regular member since 2012. Abroad, he has performed in Thailand, Austria, Estonia, and Russia.

Jason has collaborated in chamber music performances with many distinguished musicians, including Yefim Bronfman, Jessye Norman, Michelle DeYoung, Jeremy Denk, and Laura Aikin; as a concerto soloist, he has performed with the Colorado Symphony, the Sun Valley Music Festival, the New World Symphony, and the Eastman Philharmonia, among others.

He is passionate about teaching and is on the faculty of the University of Northern Colorado and the International Festival-Institute at Round Top; he also taught at the Metropolitan State University of Denver from 2015 to 2016. In addition, Jason has taught many masterclasses and workshops using the concepts of performance psychology to benefit artists. At the end of 2023, he will complete a master’s degree in performance psychology and plans to earn the Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC) designation. Although he will continue to perform fulltime, he is also excited to help artists overcome barriers to achieving optimal performance.

Jason studied piano during his time at Eastman and loves to accompany other musicians. He is a founder of the Colorado Symphony Cocktail Club, loves gardening, and travels internationally as often as possible.

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PROGRAM III

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) Overture to Goethe’s Egmont, Op. 84 Ludwig van Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770 in Bonn, and died March 26, 1827 in Vienna.

He composed the incidental music to Goethe’s drama Egmont of 1787 between October 1809 and June 1810; the Overture was the last of the nine pieces to be written. The score calls for pairs of woodwinds plus piccolo, four horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. Duration is about 9 minutes.

Bertie Baigent was the conductor when the orchestra last performed this piece on December 16, 2019.

“The first casualty when war comes,” observed Senator Hiram Johnson in 1917, “is truth.” So when Napoleon invaded Vienna in May 1809, convinced that the Austrian Empire was the major stumbling-block to his domination of Europe, it is not surprising that censorship of literature, of the press, and of the theater were instituted immediately. The months until the French departed in October were bitter ones for the Viennese. The value of the national currency dwindled, food was in short supply, and freedoms were limited. Soon after the first of the year, with Napoleon’s forces gone, the director of the Hoftheater, Josef Härtel, arranged for the production of a series of revivals of the dramas of Schiller and Goethe, the great figures of the German stage.

Appropriately, two plays that he chose dealt with the oppression of a noble people by a foreign tyrant, and of the eventual freedom the patriots won for themselves — Schiller’s William Tell and Goethe’s Egmont.

Beethoven was commissioned to write the music for Goethe’s 1789 play. (Adalbert Gyrowetz was assigned William Tell. Rossini’s setting of the tale was still two decades in the future.)

Egmont, based on an incident from 1567, depicts the subjugation of the Netherlands to the tyrannical Spanish rulers, the agony of the people, and their growing defiance and dreams of liberty, and ends with Count Egmont’s call for revolution and his vision of eventual victory in the moments before his execution.

The theme of political oppression overthrown in the name of freedom was also treated by Beethoven in his only opera, Fidelio, and the musical process employed there also served well for Egmont. The triumph of good over evil, of light over darkness, is portrayed through the overall structure of the work: major tonalities replace minor at the moment of victory; bright orchestral sonorities succeed somber, threatening ones; fanfares displace sinuous melodies. The Overture compresses the action of the play into a single musical span. A stark unison begins the introduction. Twice, stern chords from the strings are answered by the lyrical plaints of the woodwinds. The main body of the Overture commences with an ominous melody in the cellos.

A storm quickly gathers, but clears to allow the appearance of the contrasting second theme, a quicker version of the material from the introduction. The threatening mood returns to carry the music through its developmental central section and into the recapitulation. A falling, unison fourth followed by a silence marks the moment of Egmont’s death. Organ-like chords from the winds sustain the moment of suspense. Then, beginning almost imperceptibly but growing with an exhilarating rapidity, the stirring song of victory is proclaimed by the full orchestra. Tyranny is conquered. Right prevails.

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C O LO R A D O S Y M P H O N Y.O R G

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES JOHN CORIGLIANO (born in 1938) Clarinet Concerto John Corigliano was born on February 16, 1938 in New York City. His Clarinet Concerto was composed in 1977 and premiered by the New York Philharmonic on December 6, 1977, conducted by Leonard Bernstein with Stanley Drucker as soloist. The score calls for piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, contrabassoon, six horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano and strings. Duration is about 30 minutes.

The orchestra last performed this piece September 17-19, 1999, with Marin Alsop conducting and Bil Jackson on clarinet.

John Corigliano, one of today’s most prominent and frequently performed American composers, was born in New York City on February 16, 1938, and raised in a family rich in musical talent — his father, John, Sr., was for many years concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic and his mother was an accomplished pianist and teacher. From 1955 to 1960, Corigliano studied at Columbia University with Otto Luening and at the Manhattan School of Music with Vittorio Giannini. He served as Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1987 to 1990, has taught at the Juilliard School since 1991, and in 2020 retired from Lehman College, City University of New York, which granted him the title Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Music and established a composition scholarship in his name. Corigliano has been recognized with such distinguished honors as the Pulitzer Prize, Grawemeyer Award, five Grammy Awards, the Horblit Prize and an Academy Award (for The Red Violin). In 1992, Musical America named John Corigliano as that publication’s first “Composer of the Year.” Corigliano’s most recent composition, premiered by Santa Fe Opera in July 2021, is The Lord of Cries, with a libretto by composer and writer Mark Adamo, which explores the “intriguing intersections between two classics of Western literature — The Bacchae by Euripides and Dracula by Bram Stoker — to warn of the monster within us, not around us.”

John Corigliano wrote of his Clarinet Concerto: “I. Cadenzas. The first movement is actually two cadenzas, separated by an interlude. It starts directly with the first cadenza, subtitled Ignis fatuus (‘Will-o’-the wisp’). The soloist begins with a rapid unaccompanied whispering run, and then appears and disappears, playing as fast as possible, leaving glowing remnants behind in the orchestra. The interlude starts with an orchestral tutti that transforms the original clarinet run into slow, almost primeval sounds in the lower winds, while the upper strings and winds play other fragments of the cadenza. The clarinet enters and shortly after begins to pull the orchestra ahead, goading it into a feverish tempo. From here to the end of the interlude, the orchestra and clarinet race ahead, building energy and preparing the listener for the percussion bursts that introduce the second cadenza, subtitled Corona solis. Corona solis (‘crown’ or ‘corona of the sun’) is the macrocosmic version of the microcosmic Ignis fatuus — the opening cadenza transformed into blazing bursts of energy, accompanied by orchestral outbursts and dominated by the soloist. Corona solis builds to a peak that signals the entrance of the full orchestra. This in turn builds to a long-held climax in which the ‘tonic’ chord from the Ignis fatuus boils with energy. The chord eventually diminishes in intensity until at last it is held only by four solo strings. The solo clarinet then enters pianissimo, and after assisting the disintegration of the held chord, it flickers and finally disappears into silence.

“II. Elegy. The slow movement, Elegy, was written in memory of my father, who died on September 1, 1975. He had been concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic for 23 years, so SOUNDINGS 2 0 2 3/ 24

PROGRAM V

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES the idea of an extended dialogue for clarinet and violin seemed not only natural but inevitable.

The prevailing feeling is that of desolation. I deliberately avoided an emotional climax in the Elegy, feeling that sustaining the same mood throughout the music would achieve a heightened intensity.

“III. Antiphonal Toccata. The finale is basically in two sections: the first uses alternating calls on the stage as well as motion across the stage, and the second involves the players situated around the hall. While the strings of the orchestra are seated conventionally, the brass and percussion are re-situated for this movement, so that they can engage in antiphonal conversation. The movement begins with an irregular rhythmic pulsation at the far right of the stage as the last stands of cellos and violas play a single note which slowly moves across the stands of strings from right to left, finally ending at the far left of the stage in the last stand of violins. Over this, another note emerges in the trumpets in a slow, freely pulsating rhythm. Three bassoons and a contrabassoon provide the first melodic material, a quote from Giovanni Gabrieli’s Sonata Pian’ e Forte, written in 1597. The Gabrieli motive develops into a large pulsating chord, which contains all twelve notes. The solo clarinet enters, introducing the toccata rhythm (the soloist’s part is marked ‘computer-like’). This section is followed by antiphonal calls between the solo clarinet and the stage brass. Solo clarinet and orchestra build to a sudden sforzando.

“The five offstage horns are now heard for the first time, playing a soft, cluster-like texture.

This abrupt movement of the action off the stage is counterpointed by more onstage playing, including a recapitulation of the Gabrieli motive by four solo double-basses. The solo clarinet develops this material lyrically, and is joined by the two orchestral clarinets, placed right and left at the top of the hall. All play a slow descending triple canon. The soloist interrupts with a soft but rapid restatement of his toccata subject, but the rooftop clarinets ignore this and re-echo the descending canon. Suddenly the toccata returns fortissimo in the orchestra, establishing a momentum that continues to the end of the movement. Conversations between solo clarinet and onstage trumpets and trombones are now extended to include two offstage trumpets (rear-center of the hall). A short but highly virtuosic cadenza leads to an outburst of all offstage instruments and to a buildup in the full orchestra. This is followed by an extended coda with a fortissimo restatement of the Gabrieli theme and an antiphonal ending.”

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PROGRAM VI

C O LO R A D O S Y M P H O N Y.O R G

CLASSICS PROGRAM NOTES PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, “Pathétique” Tchaikovsky composed the Sixth Symphony between February 16 and August 24, 1893. He conducted the work’s premiere on October 28, 1893, with the Orchestra of the Imperial Russian Music Society in the Hall of Nobility in St. Petersburg. The score calls for piccolo, three flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion and strings.

Duration is about 46 minutes. The last performance by the orchestra was Mar 15-17, 2019, conducted

by Peter Oundjian.

Tchaikovsky died in 1893, at the age of only 53. His death was long attributed to the accidental drinking of a glass of unboiled water during a cholera outbreak, but that theory has been questioned in recent years with the alternate explanation that he was forced to take his own life because of a homosexual liaison with the underage son of a noble family. Though the manner of Tchaikovsky’s death is incidental to the place of his Sixth Symphony in music history, the fact of it is not.

Tchaikovsky conducted his B minor Symphony for the first time only a week before his death. It was given a cool reception by musicians and public, and Tchaikovsky’s frustration was multiplied when discussion of the work was avoided by the guests at a dinner party following the concert. Three days later, however, his mood seemed brighter, and he told a friend that he was not yet ready to be snatched off by death, “that snubbed-nose horror. I feel that I shall live a long time.” He was wrong. The evidence of the manner of his death is not conclusive, but what is certain is the overwhelming grief and sense of loss felt by music lovers in Russia and abroad as the news of his passing spread. Memorial concerts were planned. One of the first was in St. Petersburg on November 18th, only twelve days after he died. Eduard Napravnik conducted the Sixth Symphony on that occasion, and it was a resounding success. The “Pathétique” was wafted by the winds of sorrow across the musical world, and became — and remains — one of the most popular symphonies ever written, the quintessential expression of tragedy in music.

The Symphony opens with a slow introduction dominated by the sepulchral intonation of the bassoon, whose melody, in a faster tempo, becomes the impetuous first theme of the exposition. The tension subsides into silence before the yearning second theme appears, “like a recollection of happiness in time of pain,” according to Edward Downes. The tempestuous development section is launched by a mighty blast from the full orchestra. The recapitulation is more condensed, vibrantly scored and intense in emotion than the exposition. Tchaikovsky referred to the second movement as a scherzo, though its 5/4 meter gives it more the feeling of a waltz with a limp. The third movement is a boisterous march. A profound emptiness pervades the Symphony’s closing movement, which maintains its slow tempo and mood of despair throughout. ©2023 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

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Two Titans: Mozart & Mahler DEC 1-3 FRI-SAT 7:30 ✤ SUN 1:00

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