PROGRAM NOTES

B. January 6, 1856, Capua, Italy

D. June 1, 1909, Naples, Italy

Scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, harp, and strings. (Approx. 6 minutes)

Giuseppe Martucci demonstrated great musical promise from an early age. Born in Capua, Italy, he initially took piano lessons from his father (a bandmaster) and gave recitals with his sister before he was nine years old. In 1868, he became a full-time student at the Reale Collegio in Naples, studying piano with Beniamino Cesi and composition with Paolo Serrao. Serrao’s advocacy of the Austro-German repertoire was quite unusual during that time in Italian pedagogy, and it had a significant influence on Martucci’s compositional style.

He went on to pursue a remarkable career as a concert pianist, giving his first Milan recital in 1875 and going on to tour in London, Dublin, and Paris, where his musical abilities as a pianist and composer were warmly welcomed and applauded. In 1877, he began his conducting career with his appointment as the principal conductor of the newly formed ensemble, Orchestra Napoletana, which was widely considered the best orchestra in Italy by 1884. He went on to be appointed to three major posts in Bologna, most notably as the director of the Liceo Musicale, which enabled him to develop further as an academic and as a conductor. Here, he championed a broad range of 19th century orchestral music and appeared as a guest conductor in several cultural centers throughout Western Europe. He returned to Naples in 1902 to serve as the director of the Conservatorio, where he continued to program new or unfamiliar orchestral and operatic repertoire. Martucci’s compositional career was expansive, not unlike his endeavors as a conductor and a pianist. His primary focus was on writing instrumental music and songs, and his music was championed and frequently performed by Arturo Toscanini, a renowned Italian conductor and the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra. At this time in his life, his career was thriving, but his health was rapidly deteriorating. He passed away in Naples in June 1909 at the age of 53.

Martucci’s Nocturne No. 1 became one of the composer’s best-known orchestral works. The piece was originally composed for solo piano in 1891, with Martucci revisiting it 10 years later to orchestrate. He utilized the vast range of sounds and textures available within a full orchestra to create a true “nocturne” atmosphere— music of the night. His muting of the strings, softly pulsating syncopated accompaniment, and singing opening melody by the violins help bring this piece to life, rising to an animated climactic point and slowly fading away into the silence of the night.

The DSO most recently performed Martucci’s Nocturne No. 1 in July 1978 at the Baldwin Pavilion at the Meadow Brook Music Festival, conducted by Andre Kostelanetz. The DSO first performed the piece in January 1937, conducted by Bernadino Molinari.

Composed 1914 | Premiered February 1914

B. July 27, 1877, Pozsony County, Slovakia

D. February 9, 1960, New York, NY

Scored for solo piano, 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, and strings. (Approx. 25 minutes) musical training at the Budapest Academy of Music, later serving as the Director of the Academy and inspiring other Hungarian musicians of his level to study there, including his childhood friend B éla Bartók.

Dohnányi sought out to raise Hungary’s collective musical sophistication. He began presenting concerts and programming music that aspired to a higher artistic standard than audiences were used to at the time. He performed 120 concerts a year in Budapest alone, and when guest artists were unavailable, he himself served as soloist. Despite his close relationship with composers including Bartók and Kodály—who sought to revive Hungarian folk music through the orchestra by researching and recording folk melodies—he didn’t rely on folk melodies for his compositional inspiration. He instead celebrated the Romantic legacies of renowned composers Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann, and his work is said to have advanced the language of his predecessors into a brand-new territory through his compositional skill at the height of his creative powers. He was praised by Bartók as providing his country’s entire “musical life” between the years of 1919 and 1921.

Dohnányi is commonly regarded as one of Hungary’s most versatile musicians. He was also one of history’s finest pianists, taking on the great task of performing the entirety of Beethoven’s complete piano music in one season, and all 27 of Mozart’s piano concertos in another, eventually settling to serve as a Piano Professor at the Berlin Hochschule. He pursued his formal

Dohnányi’s Variations on a Nursery Tune for piano and orchestra was subtitled “For the enjoyment of humorous people and for the annoyance of others.” This piece captures the spirit of Romanticism and manages to delight and enthrall in its sparkling piano writing and lush orchestral textures. Inspired by the French nursery song, Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman otherwise known as Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star —this piece is satirical and pokes fun at the fashions and figures of his youth as much of his music does. The virtuosity of the piano solo part and the orchestral writing come together with an extraordinary degree of empathy. Written in a Theme and Variations form, this piece contains a long, doom-ridden orchestral introduction preparing the audience for the worst. The soloist enters with the main nursery tune theme, performed plainly and simply, almost as if a child was picking out the tune on the keyboard with their index fingers. Next comes 13 variations presented with an astonishing diversity of contrasts, complements, emotions, and virtuosity. Each variation takes this melody to extremes, at some points completely distorting the theme into oblivion. The final reprise and coda take us back to the initial melody, this time as a virtuosic race to the finish between the pianist and the orchestra, as if Dohnányi was slamming the book shut at the end of this thrilling, captivating tale.

The DSO has performed Dohnányi’s Variations on a Nursery Tune just once, in December 1945, conducted by Karl Krueger.

Composed 1877-1878 | Premiered February 1878

B. May 7, 1840, Votkinsk, Russia

D. November 6, 1893, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings. (Approx. 44 minutes)

TheSymphony No. 4 is a signature piece among Tchaikovsky’s seven works in the symphonic form and is typically understood as the work that established his maturity in the genre. Its salient characteristics are a superheated emotional character and a lean, intense orchestral texture. Together, these traits remind the listener of several other masterworks in Tchaikovsky’s oeuvre: the B-flat minor Piano Concerto (1875), the ballet Swan Lake (1876), and the opera Eugene Onegin (1878), which was composed simultaneously to the Symphony No. 4. Placed in the context of these other works, this passionate symphony is usually viewed as a white-hot product of Tchaikovksy’s stresses and frustrations in the mid-1870s, which stemmed from his personal recognition of his homosexuality and subsequent failed marriage.

The symphony is dedicated to Nadezhda von Meck, a wealthy Russian businesswoman who supported Tchaikovsky financially for 13 years, under the stipulation that the two may never meet. The work’s opening trumpet fanfare—the so-called “fate” motive Tchaikovsky referred to in letters he wrote to Madame von Meck about the symphony—recurs as a kind of structural pillar marking off major sections of the first movement. Startling statements of the motive separate the exposition setting forth its themes, the development section in which they are fragmented, the restatement of the themes in the recapitulation, and the coda at the end of the movement. The “fate” motive also makes a dramatic reappearance in the coda of the fourth movement.

Following the symphony’s slow introduction, the two main themes in the opening movement are waltzes, which Tchaikovsky had a habit of strewing about his symphonies. First comes a nervous, moody, minor-mode waltz with a twisting thematic profile, and then a lilting waltz for strings and woodwinds emerges from it.

Turning to march rhythms, oboe, cello, violin, and bassoon alternately move in a solemn procession through the slow movement. The measured tread of this music harks back to the slow movement of Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony No. 4, whose clear formal design and crystalline orchestral colors served as a model for the young Tchaikovsky when he began his struggle to master symphonic form.

The brilliant set of marches that make up the third movement stand out as some of the most striking music Tchaikovsky ever composed. Plucked strings, bright woodwinds, and shining brass enter the parade one after another, their tone colors standing in razor-sharp contrast to each other. Finally, Tchaikovsky combines the march tunes and the separate colors in an exhilarating coda. The fourth movement is no less joyous, consisting of a thrilling set

For Jader Bignamini biography, see page 6.

of Russian dances that alternate with each other throughout the movement.

The DSO most recently performed Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in November 2018, conducted by John Storgårds. The DSO first performed the piece in February 1917, conducted by Weston Gales.

Pianist

Isata KannehMason is in great demand internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. She offers eclectic and interesting repertoire, with her recital programs encompassing music from Haydn and Mozart to Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Gershwin, and beyond. In concerto, she is equally at home in Felix Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, whose piano concerto featured on Kanneh-Mason’s chart-topping debut recording, as in Prokofiev and Dohnányi.

In the 2022-23 season, KannehMason steps into her role as Artist in Residence with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, performing three concerti across the season at London’s Cadogan Hall. She returns to Dortmund’s Konzerthaus as one of their Junge Wilde artists and makes multiple visits to both the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Other highlights of the season include recital performances at the Barbican, Queen Elizabeth, and Wigmore halls in London; the Philharmonie Berlin; National Concert Hall Dublin; Perth Concert Hall; Prinzregententheater Munich; and the Sala São Paulo. As concerto soloist, Kanneh-Mason appears with the

Orchestra of Opera North, New World Symphony Miami, City of Birmingham Symphony, Duisburg Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra of Norwegian Opera. She returns to the Baltimore Symphony, and recently made her long-awaited debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.

Kanneh-Mason is a Decca Classics recording artist. Her 2019 album, Romance – the Piano Music of Clara Schumann, entered the UK classical charts at No. 1, Gramophone magazine extolling the recording as “one of the most charming and engaging debuts.” This was followed in 2021 by Summertime, an album of 20th century American repertoire featuring Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata and a world premiere recording of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Impromptu in B minor. In November 2021, along with her cellist brother, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Isata released her first duo album entitled Muse, beautifully demonstrating the siblings’ musicality and refined skill borne from years of playing and performing together.

She was an ECHO Rising Star in 2021-22, performing in many of Europe’s finest halls, and is also the recipient of the coveted Leonard Bernstein Award and an Opus Klassik award for best young artist.

JEFF TYZIK Principal Pops Conductor