THE FOUR SEASONS WITH AVI AVITAL WITH YOUR COLORADO SYMPHONY
AVI AVITAL, mandolin
NICHOLAS TISHERMAN, oboe
DAVID BELKOVSKI, harpsichord
Saturday, March 15, 2025 at 7:30pm
Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 1:00pm
Boettcher Concert Hall
VIVALDI Concerto in D major, RV 93
I. Allegro giusto
II. Largo
III. Allegro
BACH Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041
I. Allegro moderato
II. Andante
III. Allegro assai
BACH Concerto in D minor for Violin and Oboe, BWV 1060
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Allegro — INTERMISSION —
VIVALDI The Four Seasons, Op. 8
I. Spring
II. Summer
III. Autumn
IV. Winter
CONCERT RUN TIME IS APPROXIMATELY 1 HOUR AND 40 MINUTES INCLUDING A 20 MINUTE INTERMISSION.
PROUDLY SUPPORTED BY
Sunday’S concert iS SponSored by cpr claSSical
SPOTLIGHT BIOGRAPHIES
AVI AVITAL, mandolin
The first mandolin soloist to be nominated for a classical Grammy, Avi Avital has been compared to Andres Segovia for his championship of his instrument and to Jascha Heifetz for his incredible virtuosity. Passionate and “explosively charismatic” (New York Times) in live performance, he is the driving force behind the reinvigoration of the mandolin: for more than two decades he has reshaped the history and the future of his instrument, playing it in the most prestigious halls all over the world. In addition to that, Avi Avital has expanded the mandolin repertoire not only with transcriptions of various pieces, but by commissioning over 100 works for the mandolin including concertos for mandolin and orchestra by Jennifer Higdon, Anna Clyne, Avner Dorman and Giovanni Sollima.
Highlights of the 2024/25 season include performances with Minnesota Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Freiburg Barockorchester, Philharmonia Baroque, Venice Baroque and il pomo d’oro. Avi Avital gives recital and chamber performances with Sebastian Wienand, Ksenija Sidorova, Omer Klein and Brooklyn Rider. He returns to Cadogan & Wigmore Hall London, Philharmonie Berlin, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Aula Magna Sapienza Rome, Amici della Musica Florence, Auditorio Nacional Madrid, City Hall Hong Kong, Orchestra Hall Minnesota & Herbst Hall San Francisco.
Avi Avital’s other recent engagements include Chicago, Seattle, Toronto & Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Israel Philharmonic, and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra working with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Alan Gilbert, Robert Spano, Osmo Vänskä, Yutaka Sado, Nicholas McGegan, Omer Meir Wellber, Giovanni Antonini, Jonathan Cohen and Ton Koopman.
In 2023, Avi Avital launched his new venture, the “Between Worlds Ensemble” with a three-part residency at Boulez Saal in Berlin and concerts in Bucharest, Warsaw, Hamburg, Ludwigshafen and Antwerp. The ensemble was formed to explore different genres, cultures and musical worlds focusing on different geographical regions and in its first year featured traditional, classical and folk music from the Iberian Peninsula, the Black Sea and South Italy.
Avi Avital’s versatility has led to features as “Portrait Artist” at Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, BOZAR Brussels, Dortmund Konzerthaus and as Artist-in-Residence at the Bodensee Festival and La Jolla Music Society California. He is a regular presence at major festivals such as Aspen, Salzburg, Hollywood Bowl, Tanglewood, Ravenna, MISA Shanghai, Cheltenham, Verbier, Lucerne, Bad Kissingen, Rheingau, Gstaad and Tsinandali.
SPOTLIGHT BIOGRAPHIES
An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, Avi Avital’s seventh album “Concertos”, recorded with Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini, features mandolin concertos by Vivaldi, Hummel, Bach, Barbella and Paisiello. This won an Opus Klassik award in 2024 for Concerto Recording of the Year.
His album “The Art of the Mandolin” (2020) has been received with high praise and top reviews in The Times, Independent, Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine as well as the international press. Previous recordings “Bach” (2019), “Avital meets Avital” (2017), “Vivaldi” (2015), an album of Avital’s own transcriptions of Bach concertos (2012) and “Between Worlds” (2014) also received numerous awards.
Born in Be’er Sheva in southern Israel, Avital began learning the mandolin at the age of eight and soon joined the flourishing mandolin youth orchestra founded and directed by his charismatic teacher, Russian-born violinist Simcha Nathanson. He studied at the Jerusalem Music Academy and the Conservatorio Cesare Pollini in Padua with Ugo Orlandi. He plays on a mandolin made by Israeli luthier Arik Kerman.
NICHOLAS TISHERMAN, Oboe
Nicholas Tisherman joined the Colorado Symphony as 2nd/Assistant Principal Oboe in September 2017. Previously, he has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Sarasota Orchestra, and the San Antonio Symphony. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory and pursued graduate studies at the Colburn School.
Oboist Nicholas Tisherman (he/him) enjoys a varied career performing, teaching, and speaking about music. A skilled orchestral musician, he is a regular guest with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and has performed with the San Antonio Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In summers he has been heard at the Round Top, Bravo! Vail, Breckenridge, Verbier, Tanglewood, and Brevard music festivals, and represented the United States during the Orchestra of the Americas’ first European tour in 2016. Nicholas joined the Colorado Symphony as Second and Assistant Principal Oboe in 2017.
Equally at home in chamber music, he has performed with small ensembles across the state of Colorado and beyond, notably with the Front Range Chamber Players, Boulder Bach Festival, and in recital with his wind trio “The Assistants.” He has also given recitals in Sarasota and at the International Double Reed Society hosted in Boulder in 2022, which featured the premiere of his first-ever commission, a solo oboe piece by composer Lavell Blackwell.
A devoted educator, Nicholas gives regular master classes at every major university along the Front Range, coaches students in the Denver Young Artists Orchestra, and maintains a small yet oft-awarded private studio of his own. His passion for teaching has taken him to Interlochen Arts Camp, Round Top Festival Institute, and the Universities of Kansas, Wyoming, and Minnesota, and Northern Arizona.
SPOTLIGHT BIOGRAPHIES
Nicholas is committed to serving this organization from both in and out of his chair in the orchestra. If you come to a concert early, you may just hear one of his pre-concert lectures. He has served as the chair of the nine musicians on the Symphony’s Board of Trustees, as well as the musician representative on the Associate Board of the Crescendo Society.
Born in New York to a family of clarinetists, Nicholas dared to double his reed count when he picked up the oboe at age eight. He enjoys hiking, road tripping, cooking, and performing with his partner, a soprano in the Colorado Symphony Chorus. Nicholas holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the New England Conservatory, and his principal mentors have been Richard Dallessio, Linda Strommen, John Ferrillo, and Anne Marie Gabriele.
DAVID BELKOVSKI, harpsichord
Born in Skopje, Macedonia, David Belkovski’s journey as a musician has taken him from early ventures into Balkan folk music to the vibrant beginnings of a career as conductor, soloist, and continuist. Recognized for his vivid programming and interpretations, David has directed the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Juilliard415, New World Symphony, and Les Violons du Roy. David’s recent appearances at the Norfolk, Ryedale, and Aix-en-Provence festivals showcased the breadth of his musical talents.
Performing regularly on harpsichord, fortepiano, and modern piano, David has been awarded first prize in several international and national competitions, including the 2019 Sfzp International Fortepiano Competition, earning him praise for his artistry on both historical and modern keyboards. David has built strong relationships with some of early music’s most notable directors, serving as Assistant Conductor to Richard Egarr, Raphaël Pichon, John Butt, preparing orchestras for William Christie, and as an English Concert fellow to Harry Bicket. Notably, David held the position of Assistant Conductor of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.
Alongside international prize-winning violinist Rachell Ellen Wong, David founded Twelfth Night, a period-instrument ensemble based in New York City. Twelfth Night marked a significant milestone in 2024, making their Carnegie Hall debut with an electrifying operatic showcase featuring Julie Roset and Xenia Puskarz Thomas. Twelfth Night is currently the ensemble-inresidence for Seattle Early Music.
Continuo playing is a cherished part of David’s creative activity. His recent collaborations include the acclaimed Belgian vocal ensemble, Vox Luminis, the French chamber group, Jupiter Ensemble, and New York’s Trinity Baroque Orchestra.
In addition to performing, David’s compositions include a commission by Juilliard415. As an instructor, David coaches vocalists at The Juilliard School and teaches courses and workshops on subjects ranging from continuo performance to historical pedagogy. David is the recipient of the Robert A. and Patricia S. Levinson Award, the first to receive the fellowship in the field of early music
SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES
ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678-1741)
Concerto in D major, RV. 93
Antonio Vivaldi was born on March 4, 1678 in Venice, and died on July 28, 1741 in Vienna. The D major Concerto, originally for guitar, was composed in 1730-1731. The score calls for strings and continuo (harpsichord and bass). Duration is about 11 minutes. This is the premiere performance of this piece by the orchestra.
In 1703, Vivaldi was appointed violin teacher and composer at the Ospedale della Pietà, an institution in Venice that housed and educated female “orphans” (many of them illegitimate daughters of the city’s better classes), and was especially noted for the musical training given to its wards. (Vivaldi’s church, on the Riva degli Schiavoni, just beyond the Piazza San Marco, may still be visited, but the orphanage building itself is long gone.) He worked mainly at the Pietà for the next 35 years, though he was fired from his job there at least three times and reprimanded on several other occasions, partly because of his impulsive and headstrong character, but mostly because the board of governors judged (not without cause) that his many outside operatic, publishing and entrepreneurial activities interfered with his duties at the school. There are long periods in his life about which almost nothing is known of his activities or even his whereabouts, notably 1707-1709, when virtually no records for him exist, and 1729-1732, when he seems to have been traveling in northern Europe with his father.
Vivaldi served from 1718 to 1720 as director of music for Prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, commander of the imperial troops then stationed in Mantua, and during the following decade also absented himself from the Pietà frequently for extended periods to produce his operas in Rome, Verona, Ferrara and elsewhere. Vivaldi’s association with Prince Philip opened important channels for him to music connoisseurs across the Alps, and in the early 1730s he wrote at least two sonatas (RV. 82, 85) and a concerto (RV. 93) for lute for “Sua Eccelenza Signor Conte Wrttbij,” the Prague nobleman Johann Joseph von Wrtby (1669-1734), who held a number of prominent government positions during his life, including president of the Court of Appeals. Wrtby was a music lover, an amateur lutenist, the patron of his own small household orchestra, and a supporter of the Prague theater run by Franz Anton von Sporck, who premiered Vivaldi’s La Tirannia Gastigata in 1726 and included Argippo and Alvida, Regina de’Goti, both also premieres, as well as the 1727 Farnace in his 1730-1731 season. Documentary evidence of Vivaldi’s whereabouts during that time is remarkably scarce, but he may well have been in Prague then and met Wrtby, since he always tried to supervise the first performances of his operas himself; in addition, the scores of the lute pieces for Wrtby were written on paper produced in Bohemia.
All three movements of the delightful D major Concerto for Wrtby are in the same two-part form, with each half repeated. The sunny opening Allegro comprises several friendly alternations between the soloist and the orchestra, the technical procedure from which the word “concerto” derives its double meaning of “contest” and “cooperation.” The Largo is a placid air of tender sentiment. The Concerto closes with dance-like music in bounding meter.
SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)
Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041
Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany, and died on July 27, 1750 in Leipzig. The A minor Concerto was composed for violin around 1720 or 1730. The score calls for strings and continuo. Duration is about 13 minutes. This is the premiere performance of this piece by the orchestra.
Any father with twenty children is bound to have a problem sometime or other. Papa Johann Sebastian Bach must certainly have had his share of family crises during his lifetime (more than half of his brood did not survive him), but one bit of puerile misadventure has, unfortunately, resounded on (or, more accurately, silenced) an important part of his musical legacy. At Bach’s death, many of his important manuscripts were divided between his two oldest living sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel. Carl took loving care of his inheritance, but Wilhelm did not. Though, as a boy, Friedemann had received excellent training from his father, and held some responsible positions as a young man, he was never able to fulfill his early promise. His presence of mind seems to have deserted him after his father’s death, in 1750, and he gave way in his later years to dissipation and pretty well made a mess of his life. The manuscripts from Sebastian’s estate that came into his possession were lost or destroyed or perhaps sold for a pint of Asbach-Uralt. At any rate, it is known that Wilhelm let at least three of his father’s violin concertos slip through his unsteady fingers into oblivion. The three that remain were the ones passed on by Carl.
It was long thought that Bach composed his three extant violin concertos — two for solo violin and one for two violins — while serving as “Court Kapellmeister and Director of the Princely Chamber Musicians” at Anhalt-Cöthen, north of Leipzig, from 1717 to 1723, a productive period for instrumental music when he wrote the Brandenburg Concertos, orchestral suites, many sonatas and suites for solo instruments and keyboard, suites and sonatas for unaccompanied violin and cello, and such important solo harpsichord pieces as the French Suites and the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier. In 1985, however, Harvard professor and Bach authority Christoph Wolff surmised from stylistic evidence and from the fact that the only extant performance materials for the Concerto in A minor (BWV 1041) and the Concerto in D minor for Two Violins (BWV 1043) were copied around 1730 that at least those two works date from the years (1729-1736) that Bach was directing the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, the city’s leading concert-giving organization.
The A minor Concerto follows the traditional Italian structure of three movements, arranged fast–slow–fast. In the heroically tragic opening movement, the soloist is carefully integrated into the texture and melodic working-out of the material. The Adagio derives its lyrical style from the world of opera. The finale is inspired by the vivacious strains of the gigue.
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Concerto for Oboe and Mandolin (originally violin) in C minor, BWV 1060R Bach composed the C minor Concerto for oboe and violin around 1720 and revised it around 1736. The score calls for strings and continuo. Duration is about 14 minutes. This is the premiere performance of this piece by the orchestra.
Though some of Bach’s violin music was lost because of the circumstance recounted above, several of those works have been recovered through scholarly ingenuity. When he took over the Leipzig Collegium Musicum concerts in 1729, Bach expanded the ensemble’s repertory by
SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES
arranging several of his earlier wind and string concertos for one or more harpsichords. Since he apparently made few changes beyond some additional ornamentation and (usually) transposition to another key better suited to the keyboard, authorities on his manuscripts and working methods have been able to recreate the original scores from the later harpsichord transcriptions with considerable confidence, as is the case with the Concerto for Oboe and Violin.
The original manuscript of the Concerto in C minor (BWV 1060R), written at Anhalt-Cöthen around 1720, is lost, but the music survived in a version for two harpsichords (BWV 1060) Bach made of it in 1737. The original, for oboe and violin, was reconstructed (the “R” in the catalog listing) in 1970 for the New Bach Edition. The opening movement is music of austere countenance but vigorous rhythmic energy that embodies the Baroque ideal of touching sentiment allied with visceral stimulation. The Adagio resembles an operatic duet in its flowing lyricism and thematic interchanges between the soloists. The finale returns the bracing vitality of the first movement.
ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678-1741)
The Four Seasons, Op. 8, Nos. 1-4
The Four Seasons was composed around 1720. The score calls for strings and continuo. Duration is about 40 minutes. The orchestra last performed this piece October 14-16, 2022, conducted by Aram Demirjian with Paul Huang on violin.
The Gazette d’Amsterdam of December 14, 1725 announced the issuance by the local publisher Michele Carlo Le Cène of a collection of twelve concertos for solo violin and orchestra by Antonio Vivaldi — Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione, or “The Contest between Harmony and Invention,” Op. 8. The works were printed with a flowery dedication typical of the time to the Bohemian Count Wenzel von Morzin, a distant cousin of Haydn’s patron before he came into the employ of the Esterházy family in 1761. On the title page, Vivaldi described himself as the “maestro in Italy” to the Count, though there is no record of his having held a formal position with him. Vivaldi probably met Morzin when he worked in Mantua from 1718 to 1720 for the Habsburg governor of that city, Prince Philipp of Hessen-Darmstadt, and apparently provided the Bohemian Count with an occasional composition on demand. Vivaldi claimed that Morzin had been enjoying the concertos of the 1725 Op. 8 set “for some years,” implying earlier composition dates and a certain circulation of this music in manuscript copies, and hoped that their appearance in print would please his patron.
Though specifically programmatic (Lawrence Gilman went so far as to call The Four Seasons “symphonic poems” and harbingers of Romanticism), the fast, outer movements of these works use the ritornello form usually found in Baroque concertos. The opening ritornello theme (Italian for “return”), depicting the general emotional mood of each fast movement, recurs to separate its various descriptive episodes, so that the music fulfills both the demands of creating a logical, abstract form and evoking vivid images from Nature. The slow, middle movements are lyrical, almost aria-like, in style. The first four concertos of Op. 8, those depicting the seasons of the year, seem to have especially excited Morzin’s admiration, so Vivaldi made specific the programmatic implications of the works by heading each of them with a sonnet:
SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM NOTES
Spring
The spring has come, joyfully, The birds welcome it with merry song, And the streams flow forth with sweet murmurs.
Now the sky is draped in black, Thunder and lightning announce a storm. When the storm has passed, the little birds Return to their harmonious songs.
And in the lovely meadow full of flowers, To the gentle rustling of leaves and branches, The goatherd sleeps, his faithful dog at his side.
To the rustic bagpipe’s merry sound, Nymphs and shepherds dance under the lovely sky
When spring appears in all its brilliance.
Summer
In the heat of the blazing summer sun, Man and beast languish; the pine tree is scorched.
The cuckoo raises his voice. Soon the turtledove and goldfinch join in the song. A gentle breeze blows, But then the north wind whips, And the shepherd weeps
As above him the dreaded storm gathers.
His weary limbs are roused from rest By his fear of the lightning and fierce thunder And by the angry swarms of flies and hornets.
Alas, his fears are borne out.
Thunder and lightning dominate the sky, Bending down the tops of trees and flattening the grain.
Autumn
The peasant celebrates with dance and song The joy of a fine harvest; And filled with Bacchus’ liquor He ends his fun in sleep.
Everyone is made to leave dancing and singing.
The air is gentle and pleasing, And the season invites everyone To enjoy a delightful sleep.
At dawn the hunters set out
With horns, guns and dogs. The hunted animal flees, Terrified and exhausted by the noise Of guns and dogs.
Wounded, it tries feebly to escape, But is caught and dies.
Winter
Freezing and shivering in the icy darkness, In the severe gusts of a terrible wind, Running and stamping one’s feet constantly, So chilled that one’s teeth chatter.
Spending quiet and happy days by the fire While outside the rain pours everywhere.
Walking on the ice with slow steps, Walking carefully for fear of falling, Then stepping out boldly, and falling down. Going out once again onto the ice, and running boldly
Until the ice cracks and breaks, Hearing the Scirocco, The North Wind, and all the winds battling. This is winter, but such joy it brings.
