The Cleveland Orchestra Summers@Severance

JULY-AUGUST 2015

Proud to support those who bring the arts to life

Thompson Hine LLP www.ThompsonHine.com ATLANTA | CINCINNATI | CLEVELAND | COLUMBUS | DAYTON | NEW YORK | WASHINGTON, D.C.

Welcome from the Executive Director Welcome to our second season of Summers@Severance concerts, sponsored by Thompson Hine. We started this series in the heart of University Circle last August, presenting a regular summer concert series at Severance Hall for the jrst time. We were delighted for The Cleveland Orchestra to become an active part of what makes this neighborhood so vibrant and welcoming to people from all over Cleveland all year round.

University Circle is, in fact, entering a new golden age. Recently listed by USA Today as one of the ten best city arts districts in the country, University Circle has a tremendous number of cultural experiences to offer — and I hope you’ll return to the area many times to experience great art and history, exceptional food, and, of course, great performances of the jnest classical music right here at Severance Hall.

The rich cultural experiences and vivid energy you’ll jnd right here in our neighborhood are representative of a new period of growth and revitalization for all of Northeast Ohio.

Cleveland is attracting new attention as host of the 2016 Republican National Convention — an honor that is driving new construction downtown for the future. Our valiant Cavaliers put our city in the spotlight this past spring. The Cleveland food scene is drawing national attention. And our local arts offerings have never been more vibrant.

The Cleveland Orchestra is proud to play its own role in bringing praise to Cleveland — most recently with news of our surging popularity among young people. And to add ever greater value to our city, by serving Northeast Ohio with community programs, music education initiatives, and, above all, great music. In performing the world’s best music at the highest level of quality and in offering programs for people throughout the region, The Cleveland Orchestra is committed to making an ongoing contribution to what makes Cleveland great, today, tomorrow, and through our next century.

We are so glad you are here to celebrate great music in the summertime with us, and hope you’ll stay after the concert to take in the sunset on the terrace, enjoy a glass of wine, and engage in lively conversation with friends and neighbors.

Gary Hanson Executive Director

P.S. Cleveland’s arts community is as vibrant and strong as it is in part because of ongoing funding from residents of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

Established by voters in 2007, CAC has provided more than $125 million in public funding to more than 300 organizations based in our county. Cleveland Orchestra audiences have benejted from more than $15 million in support for performances, education programs, and free concerts like the annual Star-Spangled Spectacular downtown.

Please join with the Arts & Culture Action Committee in supporting this incredible community asset when we vote to renew the Arts & Culture levy in November. Your vote will help renew a tax on cigarettes, and continue critical support for the arts and cultural groups for another ten years. To learn more, visit www.acac2015.org.

Summers@Severance

Welcome

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The Cleveland Orchestra

July 10 August 7 August 21 at 7 p.m.

JULY-AUGUST 2015

Table of Contents 3

Copyright © 2015 by The Cleveland Orchestra Eric Sellen, Program Book Editor E-MAIL: esellen@clevelandorchestra.com

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Program book advertising is sold through Live Publishing Company at 216-721-1800.

The Cleveland Orchestra is grateful to the following organizations for their ongoing generous support of The Cleveland Orchestra: National Endowment for the Arts, the State of Ohio and Ohio Arts Council, and to the residents of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

The Cleveland Orchestra is proud to have its home, Severance Hall, located on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, with whom it has a long history of collaboration and partnership.

Shostakovich’s Fifth Concert Program: August 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Conductor: Stanisław Skrowaczewski . . . . . . .

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

About the Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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31 32 33 34

Handel’s Water Music Concert Program: August 21 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Conductor: Nicholas McGegan . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

About the Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Soloist: Mark Kosower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Program Book WayÀnding

AUGUST 21

The Cleveland Orchestra is proud of its long-term partnership with Kent State University, made possible in part through generous funding from the State of Ohio.

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AUGUST 7

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NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS

Summers@Severance

Franz, Beethoven & Strauss Concert Program: July 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Music Director: Franz Welser-Möst . . . . . . . . . . .

About the Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Soloist: Igor Levit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

JULY 10

Program books for Cleveland Orchestra concerts are produced by The Cleveland Orchestra and are distributed free to attending audience members.

Welcome Welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 About the Orchestra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 The Cleveland Orchestra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 About Summers@Severance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 By the Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 News: Cleveland’s Pride Makes Perfect . . . . . . . . 28 Building Future Audiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Musical Arts Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Get Involved — Volunteering, Make Music, and More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Guest Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Violins of Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

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Your Role . . . in The Cleveland Orchestra’s Future GeneraƟons of Clevelanders have supported the Orchestra and enjoyed its concerts. Tens of thousands have learned to love music through its educaƟon programs, celebrated important events with its music, and shared in its musicmaking — at school, at Severance Hall, at Blossom, downtown at Public Square, on the radio, and with family and friends.

Ticket sales cover less than half the cost of presenƟng The Cleveland Orchestra’s season each year. To sustain its acƟviƟes here in Northeast Ohio, the Orchestra has undertaken the most ambiƟous fundraising campaign in our history: the Sound for the Centennial Campaign. By making a donaƟon, you can make a crucial diīerence in helping to ensure that future generaƟons will conƟnue to enjoy the Orchestra’s performances, educaƟon programs, and community acƟviƟes and partnerships. To make a giŌ to The Cleveland Orchestra, please visit us online, or call 216-231-7562.

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clevelandorchestra.com

The Cleveland Orchestra

of its founding in 2018, The Cleveland Orchestra is undergoing a new transformation and renaissance. Under the leadership of Franz Welser-Möst, entering his fourteenth year as the ensemble’s music director with the upcoming 2015-16 season, The Cleveland Orchestra is acknowledged among the world’s handful of best orchestras. With Welser-Möst, the ensemble’s musicians, board of directors, staff, volunteers, and hometown are working together on a set of enhanced goals for the 21st century — to continue the Orchestra’s legendary command of musical excellence, to renew its focus on fully serving the communities where it performs through concerts, engagement, and music education, to develop the youngest audience of any orchestra, to build on its tradition of community support and financial strength, and to move forward into the Orchestra’s next century with an unshakeable commitment to innovation and a fearless pursuit of success.

The Cleveland Orchestra divides its time each year across concert seasons at home in Cleveland’s Severance Hall and each summer at Blossom Music Center. Additional portions of the year are devoted to touring and to a series of innovative and intensive performance residencies. These include an annual set of concerts and education programs and partnerships in Florida, a recurring residency at Vienna’s Musikverein, and regular appearances at Switzerland’s Lucerne Festival, at New York’s Lincoln Center Festival, and at Indiana University.

Each year since 1989, The Cleveland Orchestra Musical Excellence. The Cleveland Orchestra has presented a free concert in downtown Cleveland. The 26th free performance has long been committed to the pursuit of musical downtown took place on July 1 this summer excellence in everything that it does. The Orchestra’s in partnership with Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, ongoing collaboration with Welser-Möst is widelykicking off celebrations throughout the region of America’s 239th birthday. acknowledged among the best orchestra-conductor partnerships of today. Performances of standard repertoire and new works are unrivalled at home, in residencies around the globe, on tour across North America and Europe, and through recordings, telecasts, and radio and internet broadcasts. Its longstanding championship of new composers and commissioning of new works helps audiences experience music as a living language that grows and evolves with each new generation. Recent performances with Baroque specialists, recording projects of varying repertoire and in different locations, fruitful re-examinations and juxtapositions of the standard repertoire, PHOTO BY ROGER MASTROIANNI

AS IT NEARS THE CENTENNIAL

Summers@Severance

The Cleveland Orchestra

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and acclaimed collaborations in 20th and 21st century masterworks together enable The Cleveland Orchestra the ability to give musical performances second to none in the world.

Serving the Community. Programs for students and community engagement activities have long been part of the Orchestra’s commitment to serving Cleveland and surrounding communities, and have more recently been extended to its touring and residencies. All are designed to connect people to music in Franz Welser-Möst the concert hall, in classrooms, and in everyday lives. Recent seasons have seen the launch of a unique “At Home” neighborhood residency program, designed to bring the Orchestra and citizens together in new ways.

Additionally, a new Make Music! initiative is being developed, championed by Franz Welser-Möst in advocacy for the benefits of direct participation in making music for people of all ages.

Future Audiences. Standing on the shoulders of more than nine decades of presenting quality music education programs, the Orchestra made national and international headlines through the creation of its Center for Future Audiences in 2010.

Established with a significant endowment gift from the Maltz Family Foundation, the Center is designed to provide ongoing funding for the Orchestra’s continuing work

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to develop interest in classical music among young people. The flagship “Under 18s Free” program has seen unparalleled success in increasing attendance and interest — with 20% of attendees now comprised of concertgoers aged 25 and under.

Innovative Programming. The Cleveland Orchestra was among the first American orchestras heard on a regular series of radio broadcasts, and its Severance Hall home was one of the first concert halls in the world built with recording and broadcasting capabilities. Today, Cleveland Orchestra concerts are presented in a variety of formats for a variety of audiences — including popular Friday night concerts (mixing onstage symphonic works with post-concert entertainment), film scores performed live by the Orchestra, collaborations with pop and jazz singers, ballet and opera presentations, and standard repertoire juxtaposed in meaningful contexts with new and older works. Franz Welser-Möst’s creative vision has given the Orchestra an unequaled opportunity to explore music as a universal language of communication and understanding.

An Enduring Tradition of Community Support. The Cleveland Orchestra was born in Cleveland, created by a group of visionary citizens who believed in the power of music and aspired to having the best performances of great orchestral music possible anywhere. Generations of Clevelanders have supported this vision and enjoyed the Orchestra’s concerts. Hundreds of thousands have learned to love music through its education programs and celebrated important events with its music.

While strong ticket sales cover just under half of each season’s costs, it is the generosity of thousands each year that drives the

About the Orchestra

The Cleveland Orchestra

brought a special pride to the ensemble and its hometown, as well as providing an enviable and intimate acoustic environment in which to develop and refine the Orchestra’s artistry. Touring performances throughout the United States and, beginning in 1957, to Europe and across the globe have confirmed Cleveland’s place among the world’s top orchestras. Year-round performances became a reality in 1968 with the opening of Blossom Music Center, one of the most beautiful and acoustically admired outdoor concert facilities in the United States.

Today, concert performances, community presentations, touring residencies, broadcasts, and recordings provide access to the Orchestra’s acclaimed artistry to an enthusiastic, generous, and broad constituency around the world.

PHOTO BY ROGER MASTROIANNI

Orchestra forward and sustains its extraordinary tradition of excellence onstage, in the classroom, and for the community.

Evolving Greatness. The Cleveland Orchestra was founded in 1918. Over the ensuing decades, the Orchestra quickly grew from a fine regional organization to being one of the most admired symphony orchestras in the world. Seven music directors have guided and shaped the ensemble’s growth and sound: Nikolai Sokoloff, 1918-33; Artur Rodzinski, 193343; Erich Leinsdorf, 1943-46; George Szell, 1946-70; Lorin Maazel, 1972-82; Christoph von Dohnányi, 1984-2002; and Franz Welser-Möst, since 2002.

The opening in 1931 of Severance Hall as the Orchestra’s permanent home, with later acoustic refinements and remodeling of the hall under Szell’s guidance,

Franz Welser-Möst leads a concert at John Adams High School. Through such In-School Performances and Education Concerts at Severance Hall, The Cleveland Orchestra has introduced more than 4 million young people to symphonic music over the past nine decades.

Summers@Severance

About the Orchestra

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T H E

C L E V E L A N D

FRANZ WELSER-MÖST MUSIC DIREC TOR Kelvin Smith Family Chair

FIRST VIOLINS William Preucil CONCERTMASTER

Blossom-Lee Chair

Yoko Moore

ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER

Clara G. and George P. Bickford Chair

Peter Otto

FIRST ASSOCIATE CONCERTMASTER

Jung-Min Amy Lee

ASSOCIATE CONCERTMASTER

Gretchen D. and Ward Smith Chair

Alexandra Preucil

ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER

Dr. Jeanette Grasselli Brown and Dr. Glenn R. Brown Chair

Takako Masame Paul and Lucille Jones Chair

Wei-Fang Gu Drs. Paul M. and Renate H. Duchesneau Chair

Kim Gomez Elizabeth and Leslie Kondorossy Chair

Chul-In Park Harriet T. and David L. Simon Chair

Miho Hashizume Theodore Rautenberg Chair

Jeanne Preucil Rose Dr. Larry J.B. and Barbara S. Robinson Chair

Alicia Koelz Oswald and Phyllis Lerner Gilroy Chair

Yu Yuan Patty and John Collinson Chair

Isabel Trautwein Trevor and Jennie Jones Chair

Mark Dumm Gladys B. Goetz Chair

Katherine Bormann Analisé Denise Kukelhan

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SECOND VIOLINS Stephen Rose * Alfred M. and Clara T. Rankin Chair

Emilio Llinas 2 James and Donna Reid Chair

Eli Matthews 1 Patricia M. Kozerefski and Richard J. Bogomolny Chair

Elayna Duitman Ioana Missits Carolyn Gadiel Warner Stephen Warner Sae Shiragami Vladimir Deninzon Sonja Braaten Molloy Scott Weber Kathleen Collins Beth Woodside Emma Shook Jeffrey Zehngut Yun-Ting Lee VIOLAS Robert Vernon * Chaillé H. and Richard B. Tullis Chair

Lynne Ramsey 1 Charles M. and Janet G. Kimball Chair

Stanley Konopka 2 Mark Jackobs Jean Wall Bennett Chair

Arthur Klima Richard Waugh Lisa Boyko Lembi Veskimets Eliesha Nelson Joanna Patterson Zakany Patrick Connolly

The Musicians

CELLOS Mark Kosower* Louis D. Beaumont Chair

Richard Weiss 1 The GAR Foundation Chair

Charles Bernard 2 Helen Weil Ross Chair

Bryan Dumm Muriel and Noah Butkin Chair

Tanya Ell Thomas J. and Judith Fay Gruber Chair

Ralph Curry Brian Thornton William P. Blair III Chair

David Alan Harrell Paul Kushious Martha Baldwin BASSES Maximilian Dimoff * Clarence T. Reinberger Chair

Kevin Switalski 2 Scott Haigh 1 Mary E. and F. Joseph Callahan Chair

Mark Atherton Thomas Sperl Henry Peyrebrune Charles Barr Memorial Chair

Charles Carleton Scott Dixon Derek Zadinsky HARP Trina Struble * Alice Chalifoux Chair

The Cleveland Orchestra

O R C H E S T R A FLUTES Joshua Smith * Elizabeth M. and William C. Treuhaft Chair

Saeran St. Christopher Marisela Sager 2 Austin B. and Ellen W. Chinn Chair

Mary Kay Fink PICCOLO Mary Kay Fink Anne M. and M. Roger Clapp Chair

OBOES Frank Rosenwein * Edith S. Taplin Chair

Corbin Stair Jeffrey Rathbun 2 Everett D. and Eugenia S. McCurdy Chair

Robert Walters ENGLISH HORN Robert Walters Samuel C. and Bernette K. Jaffe Chair

CLARINETS Franklin Cohen * Robert Marcellus Chair

Robert Woolfrey Daniel McKelway 2 Robert R. and Vilma L. Kohn Chair

Linnea Nereim E-FLAT CLARINET Daniel McKelway Stanley L. and Eloise M. Morgan Chair

BASS CLARINET Linnea Nereim BASSOONS John Clouser *

HORNS Richard King * George Szell Memorial Chair

Michael Mayhew

§

Knight Foundation Chair

Jesse McCormick Robert B. Benyo Chair

Hans Clebsch Alan DeMattia TRUMPETS Michael Sachs * Robert and Eunice Podis Weiskopf Chair

Jack Sutte Lyle Steelman2 James P. and Dolores D. Storer Chair

Michael Miller CORNETS Michael Sachs * Mary Elizabeth and G. Robert Klein Chair

Michael Miller

Sandra L. Haslinger Chair

Jonathan Sherwin

Gilbert W. and Louise I. Humphrey Chair

Richard Stout Alexander and Marianna C. McAfee Chair

Shachar Israel 2 BASS TROMBONE Thomas Klaber EUPHONIUM AND BASS TRUMPET Richard Stout TUBA Yasuhito Sugiyama* Nathalie C. Spence and Nathalie S. Boswell Chair

TIMPANI Paul Yancich * Otto G. and Corinne T. Voss Chair

Tom Freer 2

CONTRABASSOON Jonathan Sherwin

Summers@Severance

Margaret Allen Ireland Chair

Donald Miller Tom Freer KEYBOARD INSTRUMENTS Joela Jones * Rudolf Serkin Chair

Carolyn Gadiel Warner Marjory and Marc L. Swartzbaugh Chair

LIBRARIANS Robert O’Brien Joe and Marlene Toot Chair

Donald Miller ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL Rebecca Vineyard INTERIM DIRECTOR

Christine Honolke MANAGER

TROMBONES Massimo La Rosa*

Louise Harkness Ingalls Chair

Gareth Thomas Barrick Stees 2

PERCUSSION Marc Damoulakis*

ENDOWED CHAIRS CURRENTLY UNOCCUPIED Sidney and Doris Dworkin Chair Sunshine Chair

* Principal § 1 2

Associate Principal First Assistant Principal Assistant Principal

CONDUCTORS Christoph von Dohnányi MUSIC DIRECTOR LAUREATE

Giancarlo Guerrero

PRINCIPAL GUEST CONDUCTOR, CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA MIAMI

Brett Mitchell

ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR

Elizabeth Ring and William Gwinn Mather Chair

Robert Porco

DIRECTOR OF CHORUSES

Frances P. and Chester C. Bolton Chair

The Musicians

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROGER MASTROIANNI

The Cleveland Orchestra

July 10 August 7 August 21 at 7 p.m.

JULY-AUGUST 2015

About Sum m Sev THE BEFORE Happy Hour 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Socialization with drink specials and special drinks THE CONCERT The Cleveland Orchestra 7 p.m.

THE AFTER Terrace at Sunset beginning immediately after the concert — music, drinks, and facetime with friends (new and old) MORE MUSIC Before and After with DJ MisterBradleyP (www.mehimher.com) Summers@Severance

A gentle and warm summer evening . . . a sublime night of music hand-selected just for you . . . great drinks and conversation on the beautiful Front Terrace of Severance Hall.

Join The Cleveland Orchestra for a great summertime experience hand-crafted for the enjoyment of all the senses. A casual comeas-you-are atmosphere surrounded by the stunning visual charm of “America’s most beautiful concert hall.” The evening starts early (if you wish) with a special Happy Hour — meet your friends or family before the concert to relax and start to unwind. Then feel the inspiration of great music performed by the incomparable Cleveland Orchestra in the perfect intimacy of Severance Hall. Afterwards, the Front Terrace beckons with a one-of-a-kind sunset, along with drink and dessert options, plus cooler evening breezes and DJ’d musical offerings. The perfect ending for a great evening. Set amidst the growing excitement of University Circle, the best “new” neighborhood in Northeast Ohio!

What It’s All About

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1918

Seven music directors have led the Orchestra, including George Szell, Christoph von Dohnányi, and Franz Welser-Möst.

14th

1l1l 11l1 1l1I

The 2015-16 season will mark Franz Welser-Möst’s 14th year as music director.

SEVERANCE HALL, “America’s most beautiful concert hall,” opened in 1931 as the Orchestra’s permanent home.

130,000+

130,000 young people have attended Cleveland Orchestra symphonic concerts via programs funded by the Center for Future Audiences since 2011, through student programs and Under 18s Free ticketing.

52%

Over half of The Cleveland Orchestra’s funding each year comes from thousands of generous donors and sponsors, who together make possible our concert presentations, community programs, and education initiatives.

4million

Likes on Facebook (as of July 1, 2015)

The Cleveland Orchestra has introduced over 4.1 million children in Northeast Ohio to symphonic music through concerts for children since 1918.

96,408

1931

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concerts each year.

The Orchestra was founded in 1918 and performed its first concert on December 11.

The Cleveland Orchestra performs over

THE CLEVEL AND ORCHESTRA

BY THE NUMBERS

The Cleveland Orchestra

Franz, Beethoven & Strauss

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Severance Hall — Cleveland, Ohio Friday evening, July 10, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.

THE CLEVEL AND ORCHESTRA FRANZ WELSER-MÖS T, conductor

OLIVIER MESSIAEN (1908-1992)

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)

Hymne Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Opus 58 1. Allegro moderato 2. Andante con moto 3. Rondo: Vivace IGOR LEVIT, piano

INTERMISSION RICHARD STRAUSS (1864-1949)

Symphonia domestica, Opus 53

The Cleveland Orchestra’s Summers@Severance series is sponsored

by Thompson Hine LLP, a Cleveland Orchestra Partner in Excellence.

Summers@Severance

July 10: Beethoven & Strauss

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July 10

1. Introduction and Development of the Main Themes: The Husband’s Themes: Easy-going, Dreamy, Fiery — The Wife’s Themes: Lively and Free-spirited, Grazioso — The Child’s Theme: Tranquil — 2. Scherzo: Happiness of the Parents — Childish Games — Cradle Song (Lullaby) — The Clock Strikes Seven in the Evening — 3. Adagio: Doing and Thinking — Love Scene — Dreams and Worries — The Clock Strikes Seven in the Morning — 4. Finale: Awakening and Merry Dispute (Double Fugue) — Joyous Confusion

July 10

INTRODUCING THE CONCERT

Musical Contrasts, Personal Statements M U S I C C A R R I E S M E A N I N G . Sometimes it is direct and obvious, while

at other times the “meaning” is more abstract or personal.

This evening’s concert, led by music director Franz Welser-Möst, features three contrasting musical works by three very different composers, two German and one French. One work is a serious and profoundly ambitious musical portrait of the composer and his family. One is a very personal statement of a pianist’s changing soundworld. And the third is a reflection on religious faith, poured into a personal musical form.

The evening opens with Olivier Messiaen’s Hymne, created in 1932 and “remembered onto paper” in 1947. This work offers a reflective and nuanced view of music as a language through which Messiaen could express his strong Catholic faith and belief in God, and ultimate good.

Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto is his most confessional. Written as his hearing was fading away, it is a unique exploration of what CARICATURE OF RICHARD STRAUSS a soloist and orchestra can do together — and CONDUCTING, BY THEO ZASCHE apart. This is Romanticism in full swing, classically contained, perfectly proportioned, unexpectedly elegant and daring. Igor Levit makes his Cleveland Orchestra debut as the soloist.

To close the concert — but not the evening; join us afterwards for good company and conversation — Franz leads the Orchestra in Richard Strauss’s big tone poem of a symphony, Symphonia domestica. Here, Strauss portrayed his family life, in the small and exposed details of a typical evening, night, and morning. That that was his inspiration and concept for the work, and that some details are pretty obvious (chiming clocks, crying baby, lovemaking in the night), does not, however, mean that Strauss didn’t also build it into a masterful (and masterfully organized) piece of symphonic music. Some listeners will take glee in the storytelling, while others may prefer to enjoy the music as . . . music.

Either choice works. Great art is a personal statement — for the artist and each audience member, too.

—Eric Sellen

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Introducing the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

July 10

Franz Welser-Möst Music Director Kelvin Smith Family Endowed Chair The Cleveland Orchestra

marks Franz Welser-Möst’s fourteenth year as music director of The Cleveland Orchestra, with the future of this acclaimed partnership now extending into the next decade.

Under his direction, the Orchestra is hailed for its continuing artistic excellence, is broadening and enhancing its community programming at home in Northeast Ohio, is presented in a series of ongoing residencies in the United States and Europe, and has re-established itself as an important operatic ensemble.

With a commitment to music education and the Northeast Ohio community, Franz Welser-Möst has taken The Cleveland Orchestra back into public schools with performances in collaboration with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. He has championed new programs, such as a community-focused Make Music! initiative and a series of “At Home” neighborhood residencies designed to bring the Orchestra and citizens together in new ways.

Under Mr. Welser-Möst’s leadership, The Cleveland Orchestra has established a recurring biennial residency in Vienna at the famed Musikverein concert hall and appears regularly at Switzerland’s Lucerne Festival.

Together, they have also appeared in residence at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Japan, and at the Salzburg Festival. In the United States, an annual multi-week Cleveland Orchestra residency in Florida was inaugurated in 2007 and an ongoing relationship with New York’s Lincoln Center Festival began in 2011.

To the start of this season, The Cleveland Orchestra has performed fourteen THE UPCOMING 2015 -16 SE ASON

Summers@Severance

Music Director

world and fifteen United States premieres under Franz Welser-Möst’s direction. In partnership with the Lucerne Festival, he and the Orchestra have premiered works

by Harrison Birtwistle, Chen Yi, Hanspeter Kyburz, George Benjamin, Toshio Hosokawa, and Matthias Pintscher. In addition, the Daniel R. Lewis Young Composer Fellow program has brought new voices to the repertoire, including Pintscher, Marc-André Dalbavie, Susan Botti, Julian Anderson, Johannes Maria Staud, Jörg Widmann, Sean

Shepherd, and Ryan Wigglesworth.

Franz Welser-Möst has led annual opera performances during his tenure in Cleveland. Following six seasons of operain-concert presentations, he brought fully staged opera back to Severance Hall with a three-season cycle of Zurich Opera productions of the Mozart-Da Ponte operas. He led concert performances of Strauss’s Salome at Severance Hall and at Carnegie Hall in 2012 and in May 2014 led an innovative madefor-Cleveland production of Leoš Janáček’s

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The Cunning Little Vixen at Severance Hall.

He conducted performances of Richard Strauss’s Daphne in May 2015 and will present a Bartók doublebill in April 2016.

As a guest conductor, Mr. Welser-Möst enjoys a close and productive relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic. Recent performances with the Philharmonic include a critically-acclaimed production of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier at the 2014 Salzburg Festival and a tour of Scandinavia, as well as appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall, at the Lucerne Festival, and in concert at La Scala Milan. This summer, he leads them in a new production of Beethoven’s Fidelio at the 2015 Salzburg Festival. He conducted the Philharmonic’s celebrated annual New Year’s Day concert in 2011 and 2013, viewed by tens of millions by telecast worldwide.

Mr. Welser-Möst also maintains relationships with a number of other European orchestras, and the 2015-16 season includes return engagements to Munich’s Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra. He also makes his long-anticipated debut with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for two weeks of concerts, and conducts the Filarmonica of La Scala Milan in a televised Christmas concert. He will also conduct the Vienna Philharmonic in two weeks of subscription concerts, lead the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic in the Nobel Prize concert in Stockholm, and conduct a new production of Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae at the 2016 Salzburg Festival.

From 2010 to 2014, Franz Welser-Möst served as general music director of the Vienna State Opera. His partnership with the company included an acclaimed new production of Wagner’s Ring cycle and a series of critically-praised new productions,

as well as performances of a wide range of other operas, particularly of works by Wagner and Richard Strauss. Prior to his years with the Vienna State Opera, Mr. WelserMöst led the Zurich Opera across a decadelong tenure, leading more than forty new productions and culminating in three seasons as general music director (2005-08).

Franz Welser-Möst’s recordings and videos have won major awards, including a Gramophone Award, Diapason d’Or, Japanese Record Academy Award, and two Grammy nominations. With The Cleveland Orchestra, he has created DVD recordings of live performances of five of Bruckner’s symphonies, and is in the midst of a new project recording major works by Brahms. With Cleveland, he has also released a recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and an all-Wagner album. DVD releases on the EMI label have included Mr. Welser-Möst leading Zurich Opera productions of The Marriage of Figaro, Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, Der Rosenkavalier, Fierrabras, and Peter Grimes.

For his talents and dedication, Mr. Welser-Möst has received honors that include the Vienna Philharmonic’s “Ring of Honor” for his longstanding personal and artistic relationship with the ensemble, as well as recognition from the Western Law Center for Disability Rights, honorary membership in the Vienna Singverein, appointment as an Academician of the European Academy of Yuste, a Gold Medal from the Upper Austrian government for his work as a cultural ambassador, a Decoration of Honor from the Republic of Austria for his artistic achievements, and the Kilenyi Medal from the Bruckner Society of America. He is the co-author of Cadences: Observations and Conversations, published in a German edition in 2007.

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Music Director

The Cleveland Orchestra

July 10

Hymne composed 1932, reconstructed 1947 H Y M N E is one of the less frequently performed of Messiaen’s

by

Olivier

MESSIAEN born December 10, 1908 Avignon, France died April 28, 1992 Paris

At a Glance Messiaen composed Hymne au Saint-Sacrement (the title was later simplified to Hymne) in 1932. It was premiered on March 23, 1933, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, conducted by Walther Straram. The score and all orchestral parts were lost during World War II, but Messiaen reconstructed the piece from memory in 1947. This was premiered by the New York Philharmonic under Leopold Stokowski’s direction in March 1947.

Hymne runs a little over 10 minutes in performance.

Summers@Severance

orchestral works. It was the last of three works for orchestra on sacred subjects composed soon after he completed his Conservatoire studies and then became organist at Paris’s Trinité church (a position he held for over forty years).

Les Offrandes oubliées (1930) and Le Tombeau resplendissant (1931) were followed by Hymne au Saint-Sacrement in 1932.

This latter piece was performed the following year and again in 1936 when it was included in a concert at the Salle Gaveau that brought together the four composers in the group named “La Jeune France” [Young France]: André Lesur, Yves Baudrier, André Jolivet, and Messiaen (whose fame has far outstripped that of his three colleagues). The group’s aim was to reestablish the dignity and seriousness of music, in protest against the frivolity and nihilism that they saw in the music of Erik Satie and “Les Six” (including Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and Arthur Honegger). Messiaen’s commitment to elevated spiritual concerns was a clear signal in this campaign.

In 1944 the score and parts of the Hymne au Saint-Sacrement were lost, perhaps in the upheaval of the liberation of Paris.

Messiaen therefore had to reconstruct it from memory, which he did for a performance by Leopold Stokowski in New York in 1947, under the shorter title Hymne. How far the new version differed from the original is impossible to know.

The opening, according to Messiaen, is like a gust of wind, ushering in a passage of “impassioned melancholy.” The section where a solo violin is supported by muted strings is a serene contemplation of the gift of the Eucharist, succeeded by a passionate representation of the ensuing state of grace. The music in effect enacts the Catholic ritual of Holy Communion, and ends in brilliant orchestral sound, like so many of Messiaen’s pieces. Messiaen’s view of the world was wholly optimistic, in keeping with his profound faith in the comforts of Heaven.

—Hugh Macdonald © 2015

About the Music

19

July 10

Igor Levit Hailed among the best musicians of his generation, Russian-German pianist Igor Levit is making his Cleveland Orchestra debut with tonight’s concert.

Born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1987, Igor Levit began playing piano at age three. He moved with his family to Germany in 1995, and studied from 1999 to 2000 at Salzburg’s Mozarteum before graduating from the Hannover Academy of Music, Theater & Media in 2009, with the highest academic and performance scores in the institution’s history. His teachers include Bernd Goetze, Hans Leygraf, Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Matti Raekallio, and Lajos Rovatkay. As the youngest participant in the 2005 Arthur Rubinstein Competition, Igor Levit won Silver Prize, as well as chamber music, audience favorite, and contemporary music prizes. He was also first prize winner at Japan’s International Hamamatsu Piano Academy Competition.

In concert, Mr. Levit has appeared with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, London Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Royal Scottish

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National Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and the WDR Sinfonieorchester. In recital, he has performed in Amsterdam, Berlin, Birmingham, Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, London, Munich, New York, Stockholm, Vienna, and Zurich. Among Igor Levit’s chamber music partners are Lisa Batiashvili, Simon Bode, Ning Feng, Julia Fischer, Sol Gabetta, Christiane Karg, Maxim Vengerov, Jörg Widmann, and Tabea Zimmermann.

Highlights of Igor Levit’s current and upcoming engagements are debuts with the orchestras of Cincinnati and San Francisco, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hessischer Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester. This past spring, he served as artistic director of the chamber music academy at the Heidelberger Frühling, and this summer he performs at several of Germany’s summer festivals and Austria’s Schubertiade. Composer Frederic Rzewski has dedicated eight sonatas from his Nano Sonaten to Mr. Levit and is composing a world premiere for him.

An exclusive Sony Classical artist, Igor Levit has recorded albums of works

by Bach and Beethoven. The latter won the BBC Music Magazine Newcomer of the Year 2014 Award, the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award 2014, and the ECHO 2014 for Solo Recording of the Year (19th Century Music)/Piano.

In Hannover, where he makes his home, Igor Levit performs on a Steinway D grand piano kindly loaned to him by the trustees of Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells.

Soloist

The Cleveland Orchestra

July 10

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Opus 58 composed 1805-06 L I K E M A N Y C O M P O S E R S before (and after), Beethoven wrote

by

Ludwig van

BEETHOVEN born December 16, 1770 Bonn died March 26, 1827 Vienna

Summers@Severance

his concertos for piano and orchestra as vehicles for displaying his own dazzle as a performer. In those times — before radio and recordings and copyright, and when public concerts were less frequent than today — new music was all the rage. Composing your own ensured that you had fresh material to perform.

Your biggest hits, from last year or last week, were meanwhile quickly appropriated by others through copied scores and with the best tunes arranged for street organ grinders and local wind ensembles. It is little wonder, then, that Mozart kept some scores under lock and key, and left the cadenzas for many of his concertos blank, so that only he could fill them in authentically with his own brand of extemporaneous perfection.

Beethoven moved to Vienna at the age of 22 in 1792. He’d hoped to get to Europe’s musical capital sooner and to study with Mozart, but family circumstances had kept him at home in Bonn helping raise his two younger brothers (while tempering the boys’ alcoholic father). It was as a performer that Beethoven forged his reputation in Vienna, and within a year he was widely known as a red-hot piano virtuoso.

This set the stage for writing his own concertos. For the first three, written between 1795 and 1802, he followed very much in Mozart’s footsteps with the form. In the 1780s, Mozart had turned the concerto into a fully-realized and independent genre, sometimes churning out three or four each season.

But whereas Mozart, over the course of thirty or more works for solo piano or violin, had developed the concerto into sublime products, Beethoven (ultimately creating just five works for piano and one for violin) strived to make the form individual and handmade again. Mozart created the molds and set the standards, and only occasionally over-filled or over-flowed them. Beethoven at first worked within and around those earlier definitions, but the thrust of his musical creativity eventually shattered tradition in order to offer up the first magnificently over-charged concertos of the Romantic 19th century.

The Fourth Piano Concerto begins unexpectedly, with piano alone. While today we recognize this as unusual, it is probably impossible for us to understand how totally shocking it was for audiences at the premiere. Even though Mozart’s concertos About the Music

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At a Glance Beethoven composed his Fourth Piano Concerto in 1805-06 and served as both soloist and conductor in the work’s first performances, in March 1807 at a semi-private concert in the home of his patron Prince Lobkowitz, followed by the public premiere at the Vienna Akademie on December 22, 1808. The concerto was published in 1808 with a dedication to Beethoven’s pupil, the Archduke Rudolph.

This concerto runs about 35 minutes in performance.

Beethoven scored each of the movements differently: the first movement calls for flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, and strings, plus the solo piano; the second movement utilizes only piano and strings; and the finale augments the firstmovement ensemble with 2 trumpets and timpani.

The Cleveland Orchestra first played Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 in November 1923, with soloist Josef Hofmann and music director Nikolai Sokoloff. The most recent performances were given in January 2014 at Severance Hall, with Franz Welser-Möst leading performances featuring pianist Yefim Bronfman.

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had crystallized the form only twenty years earlier, musical audiences of the time knew the conventions and were expecting creativity within those boundaries. A concerto always started with an orchestral introduction. The beginning might be longer or shorter, noisy or quiet, but the concerto was ultimately an orchestral genre, with soloist as an invited guest.

Here, with Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto, the soloist is instead placed fully in charge of the form — not just in the audience’s minds as the expected center of attention, but as full equal to the entire orchestra. Thus is the heroic 19th-century concerto born, in which the soloist became protagonist rather than mere dialogue partner, and the “conversation” between soloist and orchestra takes on a sense of combative clashing and argument far beyond the good-natured sparring that earlier concertos had offered as musical entertainment.

Not only does the piano begin the concerto, but it starts with unusual gentleness and grace, and “warms up” only gradually. Indeed, the entire concerto seems much more of a personal statement from Beethoven, as soloist and overall composer, than any of his preceding concertos. The opening movement continues at length — at twenty minutes, it is at least a third longer than any that Mozart or Beethoven had previously created — alternating across the sections of sonata form between a deceptive, gentle playfulness and a more robust outlook.

Then in the second movement, the orchestra and soloist almost seem to wander off into different concertos. The orchestra offers forceful stabs of sound, to which the piano repeatedly responds with introspective musings, as if thinking about something else entirely. Once the bewildered orchestra backs off, however, Beethoven allows the piano to be more or less alone onstage, as if deep in thought. Some sublimely heart-wrenching solo piano passages follow, including a cadenza for right hand alone, before the movement withers to silence.

Without pause, we are suddenly in the third-movement finale. Finally, the orchestra and soloist are ready to enjoy playing together, and this joyful movement is a delightful rondo of invention and variations built around an initial short march tune.

Beethoven carefully varies the lengths of each statement and its response, building up a wonderfully vibrant sense of fun and excitement. A brief cadenza allows a momentary spotlight on the soloist and then, just as at the beginning of the concerto, Beethoven also breaks convention at the end, with the solo part About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

written through to the final chord in the final bar. Traditionally, the orchestra would have closed out the piece without the soloist, or with the soloist merely playing along with the tune at the end. (Beethoven’s Fourth isn’t entirely cutting edge in this respect, however, as Mozart had tried a “dual ending” in his last piano concerto.)

In the context of listening to any of Beethoven’s five piano concertos and contemplating his innovations and evolution of the artform, it is occasionally worthwhile noting that there is a sixth piano concerto by Beethoven.

This is an arrangement that he made (or helped supervise) of his own Violin Concerto, Opus 61, for a generous Italian publisher. Known as Opus 61a, it is infrequently programmed, few soloists have bothered to learn the part, and, admittedly, some portions of it don’t really work. It is, nonetheless, a strangely interesting work to hear in performance or recording — and one sure way for many modern listeners who feel too well-acquainted with Beethoven’s concertos to be startled again, as his audiences were, on hearing something unexpectedly familiar but different.

—Eric Sellen © 2015 Eric Sellen serves as program book editor for The Cleveland Orchestra.

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About the Music

23

July 10

Symphonia domestica, Opus 53 composed 1902-03

by

Richard

STRAUSS born June 11, 1864 Munich died September 8, 1949 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria

T H E P A R A D O X at the heart of this great work is this — marriage, parenthood, and the intimacies of family life, for most of us, are of consuming importance, permanent and inescapable.

They are usually also private, personal matters, and the source of happiness or misery, or both. Painters and novelists have explored domestic subjects for centuries, and the self-portrait is an honored form of art. Why, then, was Richard Strauss regularly ridiculed for portraying himself and his family in his music?

How can the subject of domestic life be deemed unworthy of a composer’s creative efforts, condemned as in bad taste, when other artists and artforms have plunged its secrets and intimacy and emotional depth to the fullest?

Horace and Shakespeare boasted that their verse would outlive the ages. Strauss boasted that his life was a hero’s life in his tone poem Ein Heldenleben (literally “A Hero’s Life”), reviewing his work and penning his own musical memoir at the age of 34, with obvious self-satisfaction. If a symphony can be pastoral, or fantastique, or Italian, or Rhenish, or pathétique, why not domestic? This was what the composer was thinking when he attempted to portray — and celebrate — the everyday private world he shared with his wife and child. He had married his wife Pauline in 1894 and their son Franz was born in 1897.

Their Domestic Symphony was composed six years later.

This work belongs to the series of tone poems Strauss had been composing steadily since the stunningly successful Don

Richard Strauss and Pauline Strauss with their son, Franz, in 1910.

24

About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

Juan of 1889, each more ambitious than the last. The new one was to be called a “symphonic” poem, not a “tone” poem (and it has recognizable scherzo and adagio sections, not unlike symphonic movements). Yet it is far from being a symphony and is much more of a narrative with three principal characters, each with their own themes. Two of them, his wife and himself, featured prominently in the previous tone poem, Ein Heldenleben. They are now joined by the baby, known as “Bubi,” whose squeals and tantrums are represented in the music as well as his heavenly repose.

The listener may prefer to know no more than that and let each section suggest what it will. Strauss originally explained events in considerable detail, then later removed most of the tags and cues, sensing the embarrassment that over-descriptive music can cause. Suffice it to draw attention to the neatness of giving himself and his wife basic themes that are a reflection of each other in diametrically opposing keys, F and B:

Each of these shows only the opening notes of the first of many themes, but they reappear constantly — his not always gently, hers not always angrily, although Strauss lays his cards on the table early on. His own themes at the opening are in turn “comfortable” (cellos), “dreamy” (oboe), “morose” (clarinets), “fiery” (violins), “joyful” (trumpet), and “fresh” (rushing scales).

Her themes follow immediately, but without labels. Pauline was a shrewish woman (in an era when one could say that without repercussions) who did not always make her husband’s life easy and even sometimes sneered at his music. One of their rows became the basis of his opera Intermezzo of 1924. Nevertheless, he remained devoted to her and recognized that he needed her, as the closing pages of the Symphonia domestica celebrate. Their marriage lasted more than half a century, until his death in 1949; she died ten months later.

A folksy passage suggests bourgeois comforts (interrupted of course by passionate exchanges) before a sudden hush introduces the baby. He is represented by an important theme played by the oboe d’amore, an instrument familiar to Bach but not otherwise found in Strauss’s time. The baby is, of course,

Summers@Severance

About the Music

If a symphony can be pastoral, or fantastique, or Italian, or Rhenish, or pathétique, why not domestic? This was what Strauss was thinking when he attempted to portray — and celebrate — the everyday private world he shared with his wife and child.

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At a Glance Strauss wrote his Symphonia domestica [“Domestic Symphony”] between April 1902 and the end of December 1903. He conducted the first performance on March 21, 1904, while on tour in the United States, leading a “Strauss Festival” assembled in his honor at Carnegie Hall.

(On March 10 of that year, he had appeared on tour in Cleveland, leading the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in performance at Grays’ Armory; his wife, Pauline, was the vocal soloist for the evening.)

This symphony runs about 45 minutes in performance. Strauss scored it for a large orchestra of 3 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, oboe d’amore, english horn, 3 clarinets, small clarinet in D, bass clarinet, 4 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 optional saxophones (soprano, alto, baritone, and bass), 8 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, glockenspiel), 2 harps, and strings.

The Cleveland Orchestra first performed Strauss’s Symphonia domestica in November 1939 under Artur Rodzinski. It has been played occasionally since that time, most recently in May 2015, led by Franz Welser-Möst.

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sweet when quiet but capable of screams too, and for his playtime his theme is transformed into a gentle scherzo somewhat in Mahler’s manner.

As the baby gets drowsy, father looks on with pride. A gently rocking lullaby is called for, and as the two parents each say “good night” [“gute Nacht”] to their own themes, a clock chimes seven in the evening. All is calm (mostly woodwinds) and father settles down to his desk (the adagio, or third movement). The rich sound of horns introduces his thoughts taking shape and, although he is interrupted by his wife (which we know was not uncharacteristic of Pauline), the music flows freely and leads directly into the love scene as the “camera” moves from the study to the bedroom. Strauss is at his descriptive best here, and why not? He did not need to apologize for any lack of delicacy since no words are needed and nothing is said.

The couple are soon asleep, although their sleep is troubled by worried thoughts about the child in a surreal passage scored mostly for high instruments. They are woken by the clock again striking 7 (a.m.).

The new day provides material for the extensive final scene (or movement). The baby’s theme, speeded up, is the subject of a vigorous fugue, with the wife’s theme as a second subject, also treated as a fugue. In the course of this energetic music, tension grows between husband and wife, leading to a blazing row — but then ending in reconciliation and the return of “normal” life.

And, as far as Strauss was concerned, it was normal for him to devise endless variations and permutations on his themes; his sheer joy in composing and his unstoppable invention take over, well beyond the point where any storytelling is needed. This is no dirge on the miseries of home life — it is the triumphant celebration of a good and ideal life, brilliantly expressed.

Once again Strauss shows himself the master of the modern orchestra, in this case an orchestra larger than any he had called for before. A horn section of eight (as in Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung operas) was established in Ein Heldenleben, but here he adds the oboe d’amore to represent the baby. And also a full quartet of saxophones, although Strauss is strangely cautious in their use, for they only play in sections for full orchestra and are never heard on their own. Indeed, in his own performances he did not use saxophones. But they have been excellent ammunition for critics who want to ridicule the enormity of these “extra-terrestrial” saxophones being applied to describing the About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

trivialities of everyday life.

It is merely facetious to observe that there are apparently no servants in Strauss’s household, and no meals. His later score for Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme [“The Middle-Class Aristocrats”] proves that he could serve up a four-course meal in music. He once boasted he could portray a teaspoon in music, and compose the differences between a knife and a fork, yet somehow we prefer not to . . . have the teaspoon pointed out.

If Strauss had wanted a scene for servants, too, he could easily have written one. That’s what he did in the operas Der Rosenkavalier and Capriccio, where their exchanges merely underline the sublimity of what follows. Music can transform the trivial into the sublime, and the Sinfonia domestica proves it quite admirably.

—Hugh Macdonald © 2015 Hugh Macdonald is Avis H. Blewett Professor Emeritus of Music at Washington University in St. Louis. He has written books on Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, and Scriabin.

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About the Music

27

EVELAND ORCHESTRA IN THE NEWS THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA

Cleveland’s Pride Makes Perfect

by Norman Lebrecht

(Excerpted from Standpoint, July/August 2015, London, England)

Art Deco plus acoustics: Severance Hall, home of The Cleveland Orchestra.

(Photo by James G. Milles via Flickr)

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A M E R I C A got its first orchestra in 1842 and waited almost 40 years for another.

The New York Philharmonic, a players’ cooperative, struggled to cope with capitalism in the raw and a flood of unchecked immigration. It did not begin to thrive until Andrew Carnegie opened his glittering hall.

America’s fourth-largest city was next, in 1880. The St Louis Symphony, rolling in Mississippi river profits, really got things going. It was swiftly followed by the Boston Symphony (1881), Detroit (1887), Chicago (1891), Cincinnati (1895), and Philadelphia (1900) — by which time St Louis, preparing to host the Olympic Games, had proved that an orchestra was a prime emblem of civic prosperity, ambition and civilisation. Soon, every town wanted one.

By the middle of the 20th century, the United States accounted for half the world’s symphony orchestras, decked out in more flavours than Heinz (who paid for Pittsburgh’s). There was shameless razzmatazz from “the fabulous Philadelphians,” surgical precision at George Szell’s Cleveland Orchestra, modern music commissioned

by Boston and Louisville, rampant charisma from Bernstein’s New York and naked power from Solti’s Chicago. On tour, American orchestras took Europe by storm.

But by the end of the century the boom went bust. The subscription audience greyed and died; the next generation found other distractions. America’s growing minorities resented European culture and shunned the concert hall. Programming got safe and stale, managers were stubbornly white, and musicians, fearful of a shrinking future, demanded greater security. . . . The writing could be read on my

In the News

The Cleveland Orchestra

IN THE NEWS THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA IN THE NEWS THE CLE

wall (though hardly at all in U.S. media).

The crash of 2008 drove several orchestras out of business and prompted others to resort to the raw capitalist remedy of locking out musicians without wages or health insurance until they accepted lower compensation. . . .

So when the League of American Orchestras went into its annual convention in Cleveland this spring, it was in subdued and introspective mood, concerned not to rock a listing boat, exercising a flummery of euphemisms by which every problem is a challenge, every steep decline a temporary setback. . . .

At night, I attended The Cleveland Orchestra, an irrational extravagance.

Cleveland, a rustbelt town deserted by one-fifth of its population in the past decade, sinking below 400,000, has no right to own an orchestra of world quality and renown — or so the industry wisdom goes.

After 2008, insiders foretold its demise.

Since then, the orchestra has gone from strength to strength, with winter residencies in Miami and summers at Europe’s elite festivals. Abroad, Cleveland has outshone every other U.S. orchestra, bar perhaps the LA Phil.

How it has survived is by bucking the trend. In 2002, Cleveland took on a 40-year-old music director when other orchestras wouldn’t look at a conductor under 60. Franz Welser-Möst, with rocky London beginnings behind him, set about building symbiosis. He recently renewed his contract until 2022, and I have never seen this sensitive, fine-tuned musician happier anywhere on earth (last summer he quit overnight as music director of the Vienna Opera).

Summers@Severance

In the News

The secret, Franz believes, is pride.

Musicians in The Cleveland Orchestra can be seen on stage a full hour before the concert begins, rehearsing tricky passages, showing the audience how much they care. The woodwind and brass principals are swagger players, big personalities. You would not want to catch a scolding from the concertmaster: William Preucil looks as if he runs a double marathon before breakfast, yet his solos are sweet as day-old kittens. Like many top soloists, he studied with Joseph Gingold, a former Cleveland concertmaster. Tradition here runs as deep as in Vienna. . . . The Cleveland Orchestra played three programmes without a trace of frivolity: a semi-staging of Richard Strauss’s rarely-seen opera Daphne, a pairing of Beethoven’s Pastoral and Strauss’s Domestic symphonies, and a Messiaen-Dvořák triple bill. In the pianissimo before the Pastoral finale, the strings played at a mere hint of a whisper, daringly confident of the audience’s motionless, coughless attention.

The hall helps: Severance Hall, built in 1931, has not just the finest acoustic in America but the most gorgeous art deco ambience, no cent spared of an iron-ore mogul’s generosity. Pride glows from every gold-leaf wall. The orchestra plays the hall like an extra instrument.

Rather than grooming social leaders for big donations, Cleveland asks them to meet young professionals who join its under-40s Circle. You want to get ahead in Cleveland? Go to a concert. The orchestra has reinvented itself as a high-achieving social network. . . .

To read the entire article, visit www.standpointmag.co.uk.

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Dmitri Shostakovich, circa 1952.

There can be no music without ideology.

The old composers, whether they knew it or not, were upholding a political theory. Most of them, of course, were bolstering the rule of the upper classes. Only Beethoven was a forerunner of the revolutionary movement. If you read his letters, you will see how often he wrote to his friends that he wished to give new ideas to the public and rouse it to revolt against its masters.

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—Dmitri Shostakovich Blossom Music Festival

Shostakovich’s Fifth

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1

5

Severance Hall — Cleveland, Ohio Friday evening, August 7, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.

THE CLEVEL AND ORCHESTRA S TANIS áAW SKROWACZEWSKI, conductor

WOLFGANG AMADÈ MOZART (1756-1791)

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)

Overture to Don Giovanni Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Opus 47 1.

2.

3.

4.

Moderato Allegretto Largo Allegro non troppo

August 7

The Cleveland Orchestra’s Summers@Severance series is sponsored

by Thompson Hine LLP, a Cleveland Orchestra Partner in Excellence.

Summers@Severance

August 7: Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony

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August 7

Stanisâaw Skrowaczewski For nearly seven decades, Stanisław Skrowaczewski has worked as both a conductor and composer. At age 36, he became the first conductor from behind the Iron Curtain appointed music director of a major American orchestra, leading the Minneapolis Symphony (today called the Minnesota Orchestra) for 19 years (1960-79).

Mr. Skrowaczewski went on to become principal conductor (1984-1991) of the Hallé Orchestra, the oldest professional symphonic ensemble in the United Kingdom, and of Japan’s Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra (2007-10).

Throughout his career, he has been in demand as a guest conductor, leading nearly every major orchestra in the world, including those of Berlin, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, London, New York, Philadelphia, and Vienna. He made his United States debut in 1958 with The Cleveland Orchestra in a program that featured Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony.

Although his life has centered on conducting, Mr. Skrowaczewski believes his soul is very much that of a composer — proudly continuing a duality of career in the tradition of Mendelssohn, Wagner, and Mahler. Today at age 90, he stands alone as the oldest living musician leading the world’s foremost orchestras while still ac-

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tive and successful as a composer.

Born in 1923 in Lwów, Poland, Stanisław Skrowaczewski began piano and violin studies at the age of four, composed his first symphonic work at seven, gave his first public piano recital at eleven, and two years later played and conducted Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. Surviving three occupations of his home city during World War II, Mr. Skrowaczewski spent the immediate post-war years in Paris studying with Nadia Boulanger. Over the next decade, he became an active composer of orchestral, chamber, and film music. Decades later, his Concerto for Orchestra (1985) and Passacaglia Immaginaria (1995) were both nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

He wrote a chamber work for cellist Lynn Harrell, which was premiered at the composer’s own 90th birthday celebration held at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. He is currently working on a requiem.

Mr. Skrowaczewski’s extensive discography includes his complete recordings of Bruckner’s symphonies with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, which were widely acclaimed and won the 2002 Cannes Classical Award for orchestral works of the 18th and 19th centuries.

OehmsClassics recently released Stanisław Skrowaczewski: The Complete OehmsClassics Recordings, 90th Birthday Collection.

This 28-CD box set includes the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Schumann, both Chopin piano concertos, and music of Bartók, Berlioz, and Skrowaczewski.

A comprehensive biography was published in 2011, titled Seeking the Infinite: The Musical Life of Stanisław Skrowaczewski,

by Frederick Harris Jr. Conductor

The Cleveland Orchestra

August 7

INTRODUCING THE CONCERT

Shostakovich’s Fifth!

N E A R I N G A H A L F C E N T U R Y after his death, Dmitri Shostakovich remains

among the most enigmatic composers. Arguably the 20th century’s greatest symphonist — he penned fifteen — his life and career (and music) were embroiled in the challenging politics of Russia as a Soviet-Communist state.

Still a boy when the Bolsheviks came to power under Lenin in 1917, he lived through waves of public hope, wiped out and turned to grim realism (and massacred deaths) by an inconsistent, totalitarian government.

Shostakovich’s youthful aim at daring and avant-garde compositions brought him attention, both good and bad. The government — whose idea of good music was simple-minded patriotic bombast — turned against him (and almost every one of his compatriot writers) for musical acts against the state, without ever quite stating what the musical sins really were.

For the problem, always, was attempting to be too individual and real, instead of purposefully and happily pro-government (which, despite its rhetoric, wasn’t pro-proletariat).

Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony from 1937, led for this Summers@Severance concert by a Shostakovich made conductor who knew the composer personally, international headlines is a famous case of veiled meaning and unand news with his work as knowns. Said at the time to be the composer’s a fireman during the siege of Leningrad in 1942 — “reaction to just criticism,” all indications are and for the composition that it was merely a coded message of defiof his Seventh Symphony ance, understood by many — and just as easily celebrating the bravery misunderstood as simply . . . great music. Lisof the city's defenders. ten for yourself, and choose your own answer.

The politics in his other The concert opens with a thrilling and symphonies was often more subtle and less in line with short overture by Mozart, a great curtain-raiser the government's ideals. to the confusion and evil in the tale of his opera Don Giovanni, or before a masterful symphony of intriguing meaning and defiance.

—Eric Sellen

Summers@Severance

Introducing the Music

33

August 7

Overture to Don Giovanni composed 1787 Q U I T E A N U M B E R of musical or stage works have been writ-

by

Wolfgang Amadè

MOZART born January 27, 1756 Salzburg died December 5, 1791 Vienna

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ten over the years about the life (and loves) of Don Juan, a man better known in fiction than fact. The original 17th-century Spanish tale of a man who seduces women for sport — and who kills the father of one without remorse — has been expanded, fictionalized, and portrayed in all kinds of art forms over the centuries. Paintings, motion pictures, sculpture, poetry, novels, music, stage plays, and even psychological diagnoses have been created around Don Juan’s tempestuous lifestyle — sometimes described as caring and creative, but more often portrayed as heartless, callous, and careless. His attributes have been mixed together with those of Jacques Casanova (who lived a century later, and was, perhaps, less brutal in his loving) so that today the terms Don Juan and Casanova are nearly interchangeable.

The Overture to Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Don Juan in Italian) gives us only a glimpse at one of Mozart’s most acclaimed operatic masterpieces. It’s a powerful glimpse, however, and a great curtain-raiser for the opera or for this evening’s concert.

In one respect, Mozart’s Overture to Don Giovanni was relatively unusual for its time. Rather than merely setting the mood for the action to follow, as he did so skillfully for other operas (such as The Magic Flute and Così fan tutte), here Mozart actually uses music that will be heard in the opera itself. While such practice became quite common in the 19th century and later, it was pretty rare in the 18th. (Five years earlier, Mozart had included the tune of an aria in the Overture to his Abduction from the Seraglio, but as a rule overtures continued to be primarily “mood” pieces — famously demonstrated by Rossini’s reuse of an overture from one opera for a different one, on more than one occasion.)

Not only does Mozart feature music from the opera in the overture, he actually begins the overture with the music that will bring the opera (and Don Giovanni himself) to an end three hours later. In the opera house, this foreshadowing is quite dramatic, and can set up a strong sense that the story of Don Giovanni, far from being a once-told tale, portrays instead the inevitability of Don Giovanni’s death, as the price for his indiscretionary life. How firmly Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, intended the opera’s story to be a moral lesson is a challenging About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

question to answer. The composer entered Don Giovanni into his catalog of works as an “opera buffa,” which usually denotes a type of comedy, but more generally designates a work that will genuinely entertain. Don Giovanni’s death at the end, when he is pulled down into Hell through the stage floor by the concrete ghost of a man he killed (whose daughter he callously wooed), may have been included as much for its dramatically exciting stagecraft as for its “rightness.”

Mozart and da Ponte spent the months of September and October 1787 in Prague completing large sections of the opera for its premiere on October 29th. Stories circulated at the time that Mozart wrote the overture literally overnight and just in time for the last rehearsals. His wife later added credence to this story by relating how she helped keep him awake as he wrote, by telling him stories until 3 o’clock in the morning. If this is true, what Mozart was doing was the laborious task of writing out the Overture’s music, which was already fully realized inside his head. And it was most probably “completed” inside his head some days or weeks previously. Mozart was a famous procrastinator who didn’t really enjoy committing to paper what he had already finished so clearly in his mind.

The Overture to Don Giovanni opens with the dramatic chords that will later announce Giovanni’s impending death.

Next comes some “creeping” music, as if things are on the move in the darkness, followed by more chords and then ominous series of notes running both up and down against the chords.

Suddenly, the mists part, and the overture bursts forth into a cheerful Allegro section as Mozart works to soothe our ears with pleasantly symphonic music. This, too, runs into some ominous chords before bursting cheerfully forth once more and then scurrying toward a fast finish. In the opera, the overture blends directly into the opening scene, but Mozart provided a simple concert ending for whenever the overture is played separately.

—Eric Sellen © 2015 Eric Sellen serves as program book editor for The Cleveland Orchestra.

Summers@Severance

About the Music

At a Glance Mozart wrote his opera Don Giovanni in 1787 to a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte.

It was first performed on October 29, 1787, in Prague.

The overture was probably the last part of the score to be written, and was most likely composed in Prague in the weeks just before the premiere.

This overture runs just over 5 minutes in performance. Mozart scored the overture for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings.

The Cleveland Orchestra first performed the Overture to Don Giovanni at Severance Hall subscription concerts in November 1935 under the direction of Artur Rodzinski. It has been programmed with some frequency since that time, and was most recently heard in 1999 at Blossom, conducted

by Jahja Ling, and at Severance Hall concerts in March 2011, when Franz WelserMöst conducted staged performances of the entire opera, and in April 2014 at weekday Education Concerts led by Kelly Corcoran.

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August 7

Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Opus 47 composed 1937

by

Dmitri

SHOSTAKOVICH born September 25, 1906 St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) died August 9, 1975 Moscow

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O N E O F T H E M O S T frequently performed symphonies from the 20th century, Shostakovich’s Fifth has achieved the status of a modern classic. Western audiences have long admired its great dramatic power and melodic richness.

But the history of the work and its deeply ambiguous Russian context reveal additional layers of meaning that, more than 75 years after the premiere, we are still learning to understand.

Shostakovich wrote the Fifth Symphony in what was certainly the most difficult year of his life. On January 28, 1936, an unsigned editorial in Pravda, the daily paper of the Communist Party, brutally attacked his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, denouncing it as “muddle instead of music.” This condemnation resulted in a sharp decrease of performances of Shostakovich’s music in the ensuing months. What was worse, Shostakovich, whose first child was born in May 1936, lived in constant fear of further reprisals, denunciations, and . . . possibly even more dire acts.

The Communist Party, however, soon realized that the Soviet Union’s musical life couldn’t afford to lose its greatest young talent, and Shostakovich was granted a comeback. Less than a year after being forced to withdraw his Fourth Symphony, Shostakovich heard his Fifth premiered with resounding success in Leningrad on November 21, 1937. But by that time, it should be noted, the “Great Terror” had begun, with political show trials resulting in numerous death sentences and mass deportations to the infamous labor camps. The Great Terror claimed the lives of some of the country’s greatest artists — including the poet Osip Mandelshtam, the novelist Isaac Babel, and the theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold — but Shostakovich was miraculously spared.

Could it be that the qualities in the Fifth Symphony that are so admired today were the very same ones that saved the composer’s life at the time? Shostakovich clearly made a major effort to write a “classical” piece here, one that would be acceptable to the authorities and was as far removed from his avant-garde Fourth Symphony as possible. Whether that makes this new symphony into “A Soviet Artist’s Creative Response to Just Criticism,” as it was officially designated at the time, is another question.

The music is so profound and sincere as to transcend any kind of political expediency. The symphony was, without quesAbout the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

tion, a response to something, but not in the sense of a chastised schoolboy mending his ways. Rather, this is a great artist reacting to the cruelty and insanity of the times.

MEANING BEHIND THE MUSIC?

A lot of ink has been spilled over the “meaning” of this symphony. That Shostakovich had a special message to communicate becomes clear at the very beginning, when what would usually be a fast-paced “Allegro” first movement is replaced by a brooding opening that stays in a slow tempo for half its length.

(In fact, Shostakovich opened several of his later symphonies — Nos. 6, 8, and 10 — in a similar way, making a habit of avoiding fast first movements.)

The third and fourth movements are equally telling, with what seems to be completely transparent memorial music followed by an ambiguously triumphant ending.

An official Soviet interpretation of the Fifth Symphony was propounded by the novelist Alexey Tolstoy (a relative of Leo Tolstoy, the author of War and Peace), who, even though he was a royal count, was loyal to the Soviet regime. In an influential article, Alexey Tolstoy viewed the symphony as a kind of musical Bildungsroman — a particular genre of writing that traces a person’s evolution in terms of education, experience, social consciousness, etc. This interpretation was echoed in an oftenquoted article, published under Shostakovich’s name (but most probably not written by him): “The theme of my symphony is the formation of a personality. At the center of the work’s conception I envisioned just that: a man in all his suffering. . . . The symphony’s finale resolves the tense and tragic moments of the preceding movements in a joyous, optimistic fashion.”

Yet critics — even Soviet ones — have had a hard time reconciling this with what they actually heard. The famous passage in Testimony, Shostakovich’s purported memoirs as edited (and possibly tampered with) by Solomon Volkov, reflects a radically different view: “It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,’ and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, ‘Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing’.”

As musicologist Richard Taruskin has noted, this interpretation was actually shared by many people present at the premiere, who had serious doubts about the “optimism” of the finale. To some, this emotional ambiguity was a flaw in the work, while Summers@Severance

About the Music

The Fifth Symphony was, without question, Shostakovich’s response to something.

But, with the Soviet government repremanding the composer for his earlier music, we should not think of a chastised schoolboy mending his ways. Rather, here is a great artist reacting to the cruelty and insanity of the times surrounding him.

37

Composer Dmitri Shostakovich talks with conductor Stanisław Skrowaczewski, circa 1960s.

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others saw it as a sign of a hidden message. On both sides of the political fence, it was felt that the finale did not entirely dispel the devastating effects of the third-movement Largo.

As a matter of fact, writing a triumphant finale has never been an easy thing to do, especially after Beethoven managed it so well in his Fifth Symphony. That masterpiece inspired later composers to devote their fifth symphonies to human tragedies on a large scale, as in the case of Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Sibelius. Yet none of the finales in those symphonies can be described as unambiguously “triumphant” as Beethoven’s, a fact that obviously cannot be blamed on politics alone. Rather, it has more to do with the pessimistic side of these composers’ Romantic mindsets and the increasing complexity of the world surrounding them. In Shostakovich’s case, at any rate, politics made an already difficult artistic issue even more complicated.

The “meaning” of the music can rarely be put into words, and under normal circumstances, there would be no need to even try. Shostakovich, however, wrote his Fifth Symphony in a context and with a level of public examination far from normal. The Soviet government demanded triumphant optimism in all the arts, and failure to deliver it could result in severe criticism, or worse. Nevertheless, Shostakovich’s music resists simple blackand-white labels.

About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

The generation that came of age after the back-to-back Russian Revolutions of 1917 (when Shostakovich was just 11 years old) knew no political reality other than Communism.

Many Russians in the 1920s believed that the new world that the Communists promised was sure to be an improvement over the Czarist regime. Yet by the time of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s, many of the country’s best minds had become profoundly disillusioned, especially in view of the enormous sacrifices in human lives that the Party was trying to pass off as the price of progress. Even though they were facing a horrible situation, they saw no viable political alternatives for their country. Voicing even the slightest dissent with the regime could result in instant deportation, disappearance, or death. This irreconcilable conflict between hopes and realities was a fundamental fact of life. With its ambiguous ending, Shostakovich’s Fifth stands as a gripping monument to that conflict and all whose voices were silenced by force or threat.

THE MUSIC

A dramatic and ominous opening motif sets the stage for the Symphony’s first movement; a second theme, played by the violins in a high register, is warm and lyrical but at the same time eerie and distant. The music seems to hesitate for a long time, until the horns begin a march theme that leads to some intense motivic development and a speeding up of the tempo. It is not a funeral march, but neither is it exactly triumphant. Reminiscent perhaps of some of Gustav Mahler’s march melodies but even grimmer, its harmonies modulate freely from key to key, giving this march an oddly sarcastic character. At the climactic moment, the two earlier themes return. The dotted rhythms from the opening are even more powerful than before, but the second lyrical theme, now played by the flute and the horn to the soothing harmonies of the harp, has lost its previous edge and brings the movement to a peaceful, almost otherworldly close.

The brief Scherzo second movement brings some relief from the preceding drama. Its Ländler-like melodies again bear witness to Mahler’s influence, both in the Scherzo proper and the ensuing Trio section, whose theme is played by a solo violin and then by the flute.

The special tone color of the third movement is due to the absence of brass instruments, as well as to the fact that the violins are divided not into the usual two groups, but into three. This Summers@Severance

About the Music

The symphony’s third movement was widely understood as a memorial for the Soviet Army Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who fell victim to Stalin’s “Great Terror” as Shostakovich was writing this symphony.

At the first performance, many people wept openly during this movement.

39

At a Glance Shostakovich wrote his Fifth Symphony in 1937. The first performance was given on November 21 of that year as part of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution, with the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky. The work was introduced to the U.S. by Artur Rodzinski and the NBC Symphony on April 9, 1938.

This symphony runs about 45 minutes in performance. Shostakovich scored it for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, small clarinet in E-flat, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, snare drum, tam-tam, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, and xylophone), 2 harps, piano, and strings.

The Cleveland Orchestra first presented Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony in October 1941 at Severance Hall concerts led by music director Artur Rodzinski. In December 1958, a weekend of performances was conducted by Stanisław Skrowaczewski, who was making his U.S. debut. In August 1985, Maxim Shostakovich, the composer’s son, led a performance as part of that summer’s Blossom Music Festival.

40

heart-wrenching music turns the march of the first movement into a lament, also incorporating a theme resembling a Russian Orthodox funeral chant. The tension gradually increases and finally erupts about two-thirds of the way through the movement. The opening melody then returns in a rendering that is much more intense than the first time. To the end, the music preserves the unmistakable character of a lament.

This movement, marked in the score as Largo (“extremely slow”), was widely understood as a memorial for the Soviet Army Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who fell victim to the Great Terror at the very time Shostakovich was working on his symphony.

(Tukhachevsky had been a benefactor and a personal friend of the composer’s.) At the first performance, many people wept openly during this movement, perhaps thinking of their own loved ones who had disappeared.

The last movement attempts to resolve the enormous tension that has built up in the course of the symphony by introducing a march tune that is much more light-hearted than a majority of the earlier themes. Yet after an exciting development, the music suddenly stops on a set of harsh fortissimo chords, and a slower, more introspective section begins with a haunting horn solo. Musicologist Richard Taruskin has shown that this section quotes from a song for voice and piano on a Pushkin poem (“Vozrozhdenie” or “Rebirth,” Opus 46, No.1), which Shostakovich had written just before the Fifth Symphony. The Pushkin poem intones: “Delusions vanish from my wearied soul, and visions arise within it of pure primeval days.” This quiet intermezzo ends abruptly with the entrance of timpani and snare drum, ushering in a recapitulation of the march tune, played at half its original tempo. Merely a shadow of its former self, the melody is elaborated contrapuntally until it suddenly alights on a bright D-major chord in full orchestral splendor — remaining unchanged for more than a minute to end the symphony.

—Peter Laki © 2015 Copyright © Musical Arts Association

About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

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The Cleveland Orchestra is committed to developing interest in classical music among young people. To demonstrate our success, we are working to have the youngest audience of any orchestra. With the help of generous contributors, the Orchestra has expanded its discounted ticket offerings through several new programs. In recent years, student attendance has nearly doubled, now representing over 20% of those at Cleveland Orchestra concerts. Since inaugurating these programs in 2011, over 130,000 young people have participated.

U N D E R 1 8 s F R E E F O R FA M i L I E S

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Summers@Severance

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The Orchestra’s ongoing Student Advantage Program provides opportunities for students to attend concerts at Severance Hall and Blossom through discounted ticket offers. Membership is free to join and rewards members with discounted ticket purchases. A record 7,000 students joined in the past year. A new Student Frequent Fan Card is available in conjunction with Student Advantage membership, offering unlimited single tickets (one per Fan Card holder) all season long.

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43

PHOTOGRAPH BY ROGER MASTROIANNI

Handel’s Water Music

2

0

1

5

Severance Hall — Cleveland, Ohio Friday evening, August 21, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.

THE CLEVEL AND ORCHESTRA NICHOLAS McGEGAN, conductor

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685-1759)

F. JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809)

Water Music: Suite No. 2 in D major 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

[no tempo indication] Alla Hornpipe Minuet Lentement Bourrée

Cello Concerto in C major, H.VIIb:1 1. Moderato 2. Adagio 3. Finale: Allegro molto MARK KOSOWER, cello

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1791-1828)

Symphony No. 5 in B-Áat major, D485 1.

2.

3.

4.

Allegro Andante con moto Menuetto: Allegro molto — Trio Finale: Allegro vivace

August 21

The Cleveland Orchestra’s Summers@Severance series is sponsored

by Thompson Hine LLP, a Cleveland Orchestra Partner in Excellence.

Summers@Severance

August 21: Handel’s Water Music

45

August 21

Nicholas McGegan As he continues in his fourth decade on the podium, British conductor Nicholas McGegan is recognized for his exploration of music from all periods. He first led The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall in February 2007 and, most recently, in August 2013.

Mr. McGegan has served as music director of San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra for twenty-nine years. He is also principal guest conductor of the Pasadena Symphony, and artist-in-association with Australia’s Adelaide Symphony. He was artistic director of the International Handel Festival 1991-2011. In recent years, he has also participated in residencies at the Juilliard School and Yale University, and has worked with dancer and choreographer Mark Morris.

One of the few baroque specialists to regularly conduct major symphony orchestras, Nicholas McGegan’s North American appearances have included engagements with the orchestras of Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, St. Paul, and Toronto. He has also led concerts with the Göteborg Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Royal

46

Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the Sydney Symphony. He has conducted operatic performances at Sweden’s Drottningholm Theater, London’s Royal Opera House, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and the Washington National Opera.

Nicholas McGegan’s extensive discography comprises more than 100 recordings with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and other performing groups, including albums with the Göttingen Festival Opera and Orchestra and the Arcadian Academy. His world-premiere recording of Handel’s Susanna with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson earned a Gramophone Award. His recent albums for the Philharmonia Baroque Productions label include Brahms’s Serenades, Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été alongside Handel arias with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Haydn’s Symphonies Nos. 88, 101, and 104, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock, and Handel’s Atalanta.

Born in England and educated at Cambridge and Oxford universities, Mr. McGegan’s honors include an honorary degree from London’s Royal College of Music, election as an honorary professor of philosophy at the Georg-August Universität Göttingen, and an honorary doctorate from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Among other awards, he was named an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire and has received the Hallé Handel Prize, Order of Merit of the State of Lower Saxony (Germany), and the Medal of Honor of the City of Göttingen.

For further information, visit www.nicholasmcgegan.com.

Conductor

The Cleveland Orchestra

August 21

INTRODUCING THE CONCERT

Changing Styles, Newer Expectations B A R O Q U E T O C L A S S I C A L . This final Summers@Severance concert of the season takes us on a journey — from the waterways of London through the Austrian countryside to a youth-infused Viennese ending. Somewhere along the way we lose the more extravagant periwigs and dressing coats of Handel and the Baroque era, try on the simpler hair wigs of Haydn’s middle years, and land at the end of the evening in the clear style of Schubert’s own youthful head of hair and his Classical Symphony No. 5. The transition across the hundred years between tonight’s first and last pieces — from 1717 to 1816 — was, of course, not all in hairstyles, fancy breeches, and waistcoats. The musical ornamentation and dances of the Baroque gave way, decade by decade, to longer forms, clearer formulas, and more challenging expectations. (These, too, would be soon enough dashed, by the Romantic era’s need for exception and invention, from evolution to revolution.)

The concert begins with a musical suite from Handel’s immensely popular Water Music. Originally written to entertain King George on a long boatride along the Thames, this music is ideal as outdoor reCanaletto’s painting of freshment to the ears — and nearly irresistible in its London’s Lord Mayor’s Day sense of energy and interchange. festivities in 1747 — not In the middle of the evening, we hear a cello conunlike the aquatic royal certo by Haydn, whose inventiveness within his onjourney featuring Handel’s going duties — to compose and rehearse new music Water Music in 1717. every week for his patron — gave this composer an exceptional opportunity to grow and experiment. His Cello Concerto No. 1, performed here by The Cleveland Orchestra’s principal cello, Mark Kosower, demonstrates the composer’s skill, as well as that of the instrumentalists he had at his disposal.

Guest conductor Nicholas McGegan closes the concert with a symphony by the 19-year-old Franz Schubert. Clearly anchored in the works of Haydn and Mozart before him, Schubert nonetheless makes this music his own, forming the very personal language and style that would erupt in full force in the ensuing decade — and take Schubert across the divide from Classical to Romantic.

—Eric Sellen

Summers@Severance

Introducing the Music

47

August 21

Water Music: Suite No. 2 in D major composed 1717 E X C E P T I N G O N LY the perennial oratorio Messiah, Handel’s

by

George Frideric

HANDEL

born February 23, 1685 Halle, Prussia died April 14, 1759 London

48

Water Music is this composer’s most familiar work. It was created for a truly royal entertainment, an excursion by barge on the Thames hosted by England’s King George I. Handel’s earliest biographers stated that the composer was in disfavor with the monarch until the composition of the Water Music restored him to His Majesty’s graces. This seems at least plausible. When Handel took up residence in England, in 1712, he still held the post of Kapellmeister, or music director, back at the court of Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover. He had obtained leave to visit London with the understanding that he would return to Hanover within a reasonable time. But his rising fortunes in England gave Handel little incentive to leave, and his stay in London became a matter not of weeks or months but of years.

We do not know whether the truant Kapellmeister ignored calls to return to Hanover or, indeed, what the state of his relationship with Georg Ludwig was during his prolonged absence from Germany. If, in fact, it was strained, Handel may well have felt some apprehension when, in August of 1714, Queen Anne died without an heir, and the English crown passed to the House of Hanover. His situation might have become acutely uncomfortable in September of that year, when his nominal employer from Hanover arrived in London as King George I of England.

Handel was, supposedly, afraid to appear at court until the King’s delight with the music he produced for a river party in August 1715 at last effected a reconciliation. Although this story has acquired the force of legend, there is little evidence to support it and a good deal to contradict it. George I certainly had more urgent concerns than holding a grudge against a mere composer.

Moreover, he attended performances of Handel’s works shortly after arriving in England and readily renewed the stipend Queen Anne had granted the composer before her death.

Most important, we have no account of the barge excursion that is supposed to have taken place in 1715. But we do know that much, if not all, of Handel’s Water Music was heard during a river trip on July 17, 1717. From available evidence, this seems to be when much of this music was first played — and it was most likely for this “water party” that the work was written.

This occasion in July 1717 has been amply documented About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

A 2005 documentary

by BBC Television worked to recreate the “water party” on the River Thames in 1717 that featured the premiere of Handel’s Water Music.

At a Glance in letters and other accounts. One report offers these details: “Next to the King’s barge was that of the musicians, about fifty in number, who played on all kinds of instruments. . . . The music had been composed specially by the famous Mr. Handel . . . [and] His Majesty approved of it so greatly that he caused it to be repeated three times in all.”

Precisely how Handel grouped the movements that comprised his aquatic serenade, and in what order, is not known. The Water Music was published in bits and pieces over the course of the next half century. Various factors suggest an arrangement of three suites, and these are used, together or separately, as the accepted norm for presenting this music today.

D major is the key most congenial to the valveless trumpet in use during the Baroque period, and Suite No. 2 of Water Music uses that tonality and the bright tone of trumpets to splendid effect. (Suite No. 1, in the key of F major, is sometimes called the “horn suite” for its prominent use of that instrument, and the third suite, in G major, substitutes flutes for horns and trumpets.)

The Water Music consists mostly of movements based on dances of the day. These pieces provide a variety of tunes and sonorities, but Handel further enriches the complexion of the work through other types of movements.

The overture of the D-major suite consists entirely of elaborate fanfares featuring the brass instruments. The dances that comprise the bulk of the remainder of the suite feature the characteristic rhythms of the minuet, bourrée, and more, all well known to the composer’s listeners. Most of the music is ideally suited for outdoor performance, and one can delight in imagining how it must have sounded to its first audience, floating on the Thames on that warm summer evening in 1717.

Handel most likely wrote his Water Music in 1717. The first documented performance took place during a “water party” for King George I on the Thames River, near London, on July 17, 1717. Handel probably directed the musicians, who sat together on a river barge.

Suite No. 2 runs about 10 minutes in performance.

(The full Water Music of all three suites runs about 45 minutes in performance.)

Handel’s score is usually interpreted for a modern orchestra of 1 or 2 flutes (sometimes with one player doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, harpsichord, and strings. Some related wind instruments, such as recorders, were probably used in performances during Handel’s lifetime.

The Cleveland Orchestra first presented selections from Handel’s Water Music in November 1967, at concerts led by Pierre Boulez. A few additional performances have taken place at Severance Hall and, more recently, at Blossom.

—Paul Schiavo © 2015

Summers@Severance

About the Music

49

August 21

Mark Kosower

Principal Cello Louis D. Beaumont Endowed Chair The Cleveland Orchestra

Mark Kosower is a consummate artist equally at home internationally as a recital and concerto soloist and, since 2010, as principal cello of The Cleveland Orchestra.

The 2015-16 season features his performances of the Brahms Double Concerto alongside concertmaster William Preucil in Miami. Recent and upcoming solo engagements include appearances with the orchestras of Columbus, Dayton, Hawaii, Indianapolis, and San Jose. He also performed and recorded both of Victor Herbert’s cello concertos with Belfast’s Ulster Orchestra under the direction of JoAnn Falletta.

Mr. Kosower teaches cello at the Cleveland Institute of Music and is also a faculty member with the Kent/Blossom Music Festival. He is a frequent guest at international chamber music festivals, including Santa Fe, Eastern Music, North Shore Chamber Music, Japan’s Pacific Music Festival, and Colorado’s Strings Music Festival. In past seasons, he has appeared internationally as soloist with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Hong Kong Philharmonic, China National Symphony in Beijing, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Filarmonica de Minas

50

Gerais in Brazil, and the Orquestra Sinfonica de Venezuela, in addition to solo performances at the Chatelet in Paris, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, and the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro. Other appearances as concerto soloist have included the orchestras of Detroit, Florida, Houston, Milwaukee, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Phoenix, Ravinia, Saint Paul, Seattle, and Virginia.

An active advocate of 20th and 21stcentury music, Mark Kosower has brought lesser-known contemporary masterworks to international attention in recent years, demonstrated by two recent albums on the Naxos label, the first featuring the complete cello concertos of Alberto Ginastera (making Kosower the first cellist to record the complete works for solo cello by this composer) and a second album with the world premiere recording of Miklós Rózsa’s Rhapsodie for solo cello and orchestra. Mr. Kosower also recently recorded works by Reger, Strauss, and Eberhard Klemmstein with pianist Jee-Won Oh for the Ambitus label, and has recorded for Delos and VAI. Born in Wisconsin, Mark Kosower began studying cello at the age of one-anda-half with his father, and later studied with Janos Starker at Indiana University and with Joel Krosnick at the Juilliard School. Mr. Kosower’s many accolades include an Avery Fisher Career Grant, a Sony Grant, and as grand prize winner of the Irving Klein and WAMSO competitions. His previous posts include principal cello of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in Germany (2006-10), and professor of cello and chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (2005-07).

Soloist

The Cleveland Orchestra

August 21

Cello Concerto in C major composed 1762-65 O F T H E T H R E E Viennese classical masters, Haydn — who oth-

by

F. Joseph

HAYDN

born March 31, 1732 Rohrau, Austria died May 31, 1809 Vienna

Summers@Severance

erwise had much less interest in the concerto than either Mozart or Beethoven — was the only one to write works for cello and orchestra. The most likely explanation is that, as Kapellmeister to Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, Haydn worked closely with many excellent instrumentalists in the prince’s orchestra. Concertos were welcome additions to the programs of the twice-weekly musical “academies,” for which so many of Haydn’s symphonies were written. (It should be noted that many of Haydn’s symphonies from this period also contain extended, almost concertolike, instrumental solos.)

The Concerto in C major, the first of Haydn’s two cello concertos, was written about two decades before the once betterknown D-major work. For many years, the C-major work was thought to be lost — only its first two measures were known from the handwritten catalog Haydn had kept of his own works.

Even more frustrating, the catalog contained not one but two nearly identical incipits (opening measures) for cello concertos in C major.

In 1961, Czech scholar Oldrich Pulkert discovered a set of parts in Prague that corresponded to one of the two incipits. The concerto was published and immediately taken up by cellists everywhere. As for the other C-major catalog incipit, it may be a simple mistake (Haydn could well have notated the theme from memory and didn’t remember it exactly) or a discarded variant.

On stylistic grounds, scholars have dated the C-major concerto from between 1762 and 1765; it is certainly an early work, from the first years of Haydn’s three-decade-long tenure with Prince Esterházy, from 1761 to 1790. It also belongs to the transitional period between Baroque and Classicism, whose greatest representative, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), had a strong influence on the young Haydn. The continuity of the rhythmic pulse and the numerous identical repeats of the first movement’s main theme are clear Baroque features, while the shape of the musical gestures points to the emergence of a new style that would later become known as Classicism or Classical.

The original cello part shows that the soloist was expected to play along with the orchestra during tutti passages of the whole orchestra, helping to reinforce the bass line. The solo About the Music

51

part itself is extremely demanding, with rapid passagework that frequently ascends to the instrument’s high register. The Adagio second movement, in which the winds are silent, calls for an exceptionally beautiful tone, and the last movement for uncommon brilliance and stamina. Surely the first cellist of Haydn’s orchestra, Joseph Weigl, must have been one of the outstanding players of his time.

—Peter Laki © 2015 Copyright © Musical Arts Association

At a Glance Haydn wrote his Cello Concerto in C major between 1762 and 1765. Performances were given during Haydn’s lifetime. The score was not published and, by sometime in the 19th century, no score or parts were known to have survived. In 1961, however, a set of parts was discovered in Prague, and the work quickly entered the standard repertory.

This concerto runs about 25 minutes in performance. Haydn scored it for 2 oboes, 2

horns, and strings, plus solo cello.

The Cleveland Orchestra first performed Haydn’s C-major Cello Concerto in March 1975 under the direction of Lorin Maazel with Mstislav Rostropovich as soloist. Alan Gilbert led the most recent Severance Hall performances, with soloist Truls Mørk, in April 1997. The most recent Blossom performance was with soloist Johannes Moser under Franz Welser-Möst’s direction in July 2007.

FRIDAY AUGUST 28 S E V E R A N C E

H A L L

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA with

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52

216-231-1111 clevelandorchestra.com About the Music

The Cleveland Orchestra

August 21

Symphony No. 5 in B-Áat major, D485 composed 1816

by

Franz

SCHUBERT born January 31, 1797 Himmelpfortgrund, near Vienna died November 19, 1828 Vienna

At a Glance Schubert completed his Fifth Symphony on October 3, 1816. The first performance, which took place shortly thereafter, was private, given by an amateur orchestra consisting of family and friends of the composer’s.

The work was not heard in public until 1841. The American premiere took place in 1883, with George Henschel and the Boston Symphony.

This symphony runs about 25 minutes in performance. Schubert scored it for flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, and strings.

Summers@Severance

A G E N I N E T E E N , composition number 485. These simple biographical facts about Schubert and his Fifth Symphony are repeated almost any time someone writes or talks about this work.

But what do they really mean? Schubert’s productivity during his late-teenage year is little short of mind-boggling. Especially when we remember that during most of this time he worked as an assistant teacher at his father’s school, and could only compose at night or on Sundays. By 1815-16, after only four or five years of active composing, he was reaching a level of technical perfection second to none, in a voice that was unmistakably his own.

Schubert’s first six symphonies, as scholars have never tired of saying, are strongly indebted to the works of Haydn and Mozart, whose symphonies are echoed in quite a few passages. Yet it is one thing to borrow a theme — and quite another to know what to do with it. And Schubert assimilated the borrowed materials so thoroughly that they sound like Schubert and no one else.

“Pert,” “lively,” “beautiful,” “delightful,” “lovely,” “simple,” “joyful” — these are just a few of the adjectives that have described Schubert’s Fifth Symphony. They are all true, yet what is not often emphasized is how much the unique fusion of serenity and gloom, seen in the works of Schubert’s last years, is already in evidence in this relatively early composition. The “lovely” melodies are always apt to end with a deceptive cadence, in which a reassuring closure is denied and replaced by an unexpected, often dissonant, harmony. It is like a sunny day that is never entirely free from clouds; but nor do the clouds hide the sun for long.

Happiness and melancholy become completely one in the second movement, when the violin and the woodwinds begin a wistful dialog, their voices intertwining and occasionally clashing with one another. The third-movement minuet was clearly inspired by the one in Mozart’s Symphony No. 40. While Schubert did not imitate the rhythmic complexities of his model, he added a few harmonic twists of his own. The Trio, or middle section, of the movement is in the manner of an Austrian country dance.

The first and the last movements combine tender lyricism with moments of high excitement, and a time-honored symphonic form with a 19-year-old’s youthful enthusiasm.

—Peter Laki © 2015 Copyright © Musical Arts Association

About the Music

53

TH E M USICAL ARTS ASSOCIATION

as of June 2015

operating The Cleveland Orchestra, Severance Hall, and Blossom Music Festival

OFFICERS AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Dennis W. LaBarre, President Richard J. Bogomolny, Chairman The Honorable John D. Ong, Vice President Jeanette Grasselli Brown Matthew V. Crawford Alexander M. Cutler David J. Hooker Michael J. Horvitz

Norma Lerner, Honorary Chair Hewitt B. Shaw, Secretary Beth E. Mooney, Treasurer

Douglas A. Kern Virginia M. Lindseth Alex Machaskee Nancy W. McCann John C. Morley

Larry Pollock Alfred M. Rankin, Jr. Audrey Gilbert Ratner Barbara S. Robinson

RESIDENT TRUS TEES George N. Aronoff Dr. Ronald H. Bell Richard J. Bogomolny Charles P. Bolton Jeanette Grasselli Brown Helen Rankin Butler Scott Chaikin Paul G. Clark Owen M. Colligan Robert D. Conrad Matthew V. Crawford Alexander M. Cutler Hiroyuki Fujita Paul G. Greig Robert K. Gudbranson Iris Harvie Jeffrey A. Healy Stephen H. Hoffman David J. Hooker Michael J. Horvitz Marguerite B. Humphrey David P. Hunt Christopher Hyland Trevor O. Jones

Betsy Juliano Jean C. Kalberer Nancy F. Keithley Christopher M. Kelly Douglas A. Kern John D. Koch S. Lee Kohrman Charlotte R. Kramer Dennis W. LaBarre Norma Lerner Virginia M. Lindseth Alex Machaskee Milton S. Maltz Nancy W. McCann Thomas F. McKee Beth E. Mooney John C. Morley Donald W. Morrison Meg Fulton Mueller Gary A. Oatey Katherine T. O’Neill The Honorable John D. Ong Larry Pollock Alfred M. Rankin, Jr.

Clara T. Rankin Audrey Gilbert Ratner Charles A. Ratner Zoya Reyzis Barbara S. Robinson Paul Rose Steven M. Ross Raymond T. Sawyer Luci Schey Hewitt B. Shaw Richard K. Smucker James C. Spira R. Thomas Stanton Joseph F. Toot, Jr. Daniel P. Walsh Thomas A. Waltermire Geraldine B. Warner Jeffery J. Weaver Jeffrey M. Weiss Norman E. Wells Paul E. Westlake Jr. David A. Wolfort

NON-RESIDENT TRUS TEES Virginia Nord Barbato (NY) Wolfgang C. Berndt (Austria) Laurel Blossom (SC)

Richard C. Gridley (SC) Loren W. Hershey (DC) Herbert Kloiber (Germany)

Ludwig Scharinger (Austria)

TRUS TEES EX-OFFICIO Faye A. Heston, President, Volunteer Council of The Cleveland Orchestra Dr. Patricia Moore Smith, President, Women’s Committee of The Cleveland Orchestra Claire Frattare, President, Blossom Women’s Committee

Carolyn Dessin, Chair, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus Operating Committee Beverly J. Warren, President, Kent State University Barbara R. Snyder, President, Case Western Reserve University

HONORARY TRUS TEES FOR LIFE Robert W. Gillespie Gay Cull Addicott Dorothy Humel Hovorka Oliver F. Emerson Robert P. Madison Allen H. Ford PAS T PRESIDENT S D. Z. Norton 1915-21 John L. Severance 1921-36 Dudley S. Blossom 1936-38 Thomas L. Sidlo 1939-53

Percy W. Brown 1953-55 Frank E. Taplin, Jr. 1955-57 Frank E. Joseph 1957-68 Alfred M. Rankin 1968-83

Robert F. Meyerson James S. Reid, Jr.

Ward Smith 1983-95 Richard J. Bogomolny 1995-2002, 2008-09 James D. Ireland III 2002-08

THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA Franz Welser-Möst, Music Director

54

Gary Hanson, Executive Director

Musical Arts Association

The Cleveland Orchestra

THE

CLEVELAND

CONCERTS

ORCHESTRA

Each year, thousands of Northeast Ohioans experience The Cleveland Orchestra for the Įrst Ɵme.

Whether you are a seasoned concertgoer or a Įrst-Ɵmer, these pages give you ways to learn more or get involved with the Orchestra and to explore the joys of music further.

Created to serve Northeast Ohio, The Cleveland Orchestra has a long and proud history of sharing the value and joy of music.

To learn more, visit clevelandorchestra.com

The Cleveland Orchestra performs all varieƟes of music, gathering family and friends together in celebraƟon of the power of music. The Orchestra’s music marks major milestones and honors special moments, helping to provide the soundtrack to each day and bringing your hopes and joys to life.

From free community concerts at Severance Hall and in downtown Cleveland . . . to picnics on warm summer evenings at Blossom Music Center . . .

From performances for crowds of students, in classrooms and auditoriums . . . to opera and ballet with the world’s best singers and dancers . . .

From holiday gatherings with favorite songs . . . to the wonder of new composiƟons performed by music’s rising stars . . .

Music inspires. It forƟĮes minds and electriĮes spirits. It brings people together in mind, body, and soul.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROGER MASTROIANNI

Summers@Severance

CelebraƟng Life & Music

Get Involved

55

THE CLEVELAN D ORCHESTRA

EXCELLENCE

Ambassador to the World

A FOCUS ON YOUNG PEOPLE

Changing Lives The Cleveland Orchestra is building the youngest orchestra audience in the country. Over the past Įve years, the number of young people aƩending Cleveland Orchestra concerts at Blossom and Severance Hall has more than doubled, and now makes up 20% of the audience! x Under 18s Free, the Ňagship program of the Orchestra’s Center for Future Audiences (created with a lead endowment giŌ from the Maltz Family FoundaƟon), makes aƩending Orchestra concerts aīordable for families.

The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the world’s most acclaimed and sought-aŌer performing arts ensembles. Whether performing at home or around the world, the musicians carry Northeast Ohio’s commitment to excellence and strong sense of community with them everywhere the Orchestra performs.

The ensemble’s Ɵes to this region run deep and strong: x Two acousƟcally-renowned venues — Severance Hall and Blossom — anchor the Orchestra’s performance calendar and conƟnue to shape the arƟsƟc style of the ensemble. x More than 60,000 local students parƟcipate in the Orchestra’s educaƟon programs each year. x Over 350,000 people aƩend Orchestra concerts in Northeast Ohio annually. x The Cleveland Orchestra serves as Cleveland’s ambassador to the world — through concerts, recordings, and broadcasts — proudly bearing the name of its hometown across the globe.

x Student Advantage and Frequent FanCard programs oīer great deals for students. x The Circle, our new membership program for ages 21 to 40, enables young professionals to enjoy Orchestra concerts and social and networking events. x The Orchestra’s casual Friday evening concert series (Fridays@7 and Summers @Severance) draw new crowds to Severance Hall to experience the Orchestra in a context of friends and musical exploraƟons.

56

Get Involved

The Cleveland Orchestra

THE CLEVELAN D ORCHESTRA

YOUR ORCHESTRA

Building Community The Cleveland Orchestra exists for and because of the vision, generosity, and dreams of the Northeast Ohio community. Each year, we seek new ways to meaningfully impact Cleveland’s ciƟzens. x Convening people at free community concerts each year in celebraƟon of our country, our city, our culture, and our shared love of music.

EDUCATION

Inspiring Minds EducaƟon has been at the heart of The Cleveland Orchestra’s community oīerings since the ensemble’s founding in 1918. The arts are a core subject of school learning, vital to realizing each child’s full potenƟal. A child’s educaƟon is incomplete unless it includes the arts, and students of all ages can experience the joy of music through the Orchestra’s varied educaƟon programs.

The Orchestra’s oīerings impact . . . . . . the very young, with programs including PNC Musical Rainbows and PNC Grow Up Great. . . . grade school and high school students, with programs including Learning Through Music, Family Concerts, EducaƟon Concerts, and In-School Performances.

x Immersing the Orchestra in local communiƟes with special performances in local businesses and hotspots during our annual “At Home” neighborhood residencies. x CollaboraƟng with celebrated arts insƟtuƟons — from the Cleveland Museum of Art and PlayhouseSquare to Chicago’s Joīrey Ballet — to bring inspiraƟonal performances to the people of Northeast Ohio. x AcƟvely partnering with local schools, neighborhoods, businesses, and state and local government to engage and serve new corners of the community through neighborhood residencies, educaƟon oīerings, and free public events.

. . . college students and beyond, with programs including musician-led masterclasses, in-depth exploraƟons of musical repertoire, pre-concert musician interviews, and public discussion groups.

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57

THE CLEVELAN D ORCHESTRA

A GENEROUS COMMUNITY

SupporƟng Excellence

The Cleveland Orchestra is in the midst of the Sound for the Centennial Campaign, a ten-year iniƟaƟve that seeks to sustain the musical excellence and community engagement that sets this ensemble apart from every other orchestra in the world.

VOLUNTEERING

Get Involved The Cleveland Orchestra has been supported by many dedicated volunteers since its founding in 1918. You can make an immediate impact by geƫng involved. x Over 100,000 friends of The Cleveland Orchestra parƟcipate online in our news, concerts, and performances through Facebook and TwiƩer. x The Women’s CommiƩee of The Cleveland Orchestra and the Blossom Women’s CommiƩee support the Orchestra through service and fundraising. For further informaƟon, please call 216-231-7557.

Ticket sales cover less than half the cost of The Cleveland Orchestra’s concerts, educaƟon presentaƟons, and community programs. Each year, thousands of generous people make donaƟons large and small to sustain the Orchestra for today and for future generaƟons.

Every dollar donated enables The Cleveland Orchestra to play the world’s Įnest music, bringing meaningful experiences to people throughout our community — and acclaim and admiraƟon to Northeast Ohio.

To learn more, visit clevelandorchestra.com/donate

x Over 400 volunteers assist concertgoers each season, as Ushers for Orchestra concerts at Severance Hall, or as Tour Guides and as Store Volunteers. For more info, please call 216-231-7425. x 300 professional and amateur vocalists volunteer their Ɵme and arƟstry as part of the professionally-trained Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Blossom FesƟval Chorus each year. To learn more, please call 216-231-7372.

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Get Involved

The Cleveland Orchestra

THE CLEVELAN D ORCHESTRA

GET INVOLVED

Learn More To learn more about how you can play an acƟve role as a member of The Cleveland Orchestra family, visit us at Blossom or Severance Hall, aƩend a musical performance, or contact a member of our staī.

VISIT

ACTIVE PARTICIPATION

Making Music The Cleveland Orchestra passionately believes in the value of acƟve musicmaking, which teaches life lessons in teamwork, listening, collaboraƟon, and self expression. Music is an acƟvity to parƟcipate in directly, with your hands, voice, and spirit. x You can parƟcipate in ensembles for musicians of all ages — including the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, Children’s Chorus, Youth Chorus, and Blossom FesƟval Chorus, and the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. x Each year, the Orchestra brings people together in celebraƟon of music and events, giving voice to music at community singalongs and during holiday performances. x We partner with local schools and businesses to teach and perform, in ensembles and as soloists, encouraging music-making across Northeast Ohio.

Music has the power to inspire, to transform, to change lives. Make music part of your life, and support your school’s music programs.

Summers@Severance

Get Involved

Severance Hall പ11001 Euclid Avenue പCleveland, OH 44106

Blossom Music Center പ1145 West Steels Corners Road പCuyahoga Falls, OH 44223

CONTACT US AdministraƟve Oĸces: 216-231-7300 Ticket Services: 216-231-1111 or 800-686-1141 or clevelandorchestra.com Group Sales: 216-231-7493 പ Ã ®½ groupsales@clevelandorchestra.com EducaƟon & Community Programs: പÖ«ÊÄ 216-231-7355 പ Ã ®½ educaƟon@clevelandorchestra.com Orchestra Archives: 216-231-7356 പ Ã ®½ archives@clevelandorchestra.com Choruses: 216-231-7372 പ Ã ®½ chorus@clevelandorchestra.com Volunteers: 216-231-7557 പ Ã ®½ lcohen@clevelandorchestra.com Individual Giving: 216-231-7556 പ Ã ®½ bdeeds@clevelandorchestra.com Legacy Giving: 216-231-8006 പ Ã ®½ legacygiving@clevelandorchestra.com Corporate & FoundaƟon Giving: പÖ«ÊÄ 216-231-7523 പ Ã ®½ cyeh@clevelandorchestra.com Severance Hall Rental Oĸce: പÖ«ÊÄ 216-231-7421 പ Ã ®½ ebookings@clevelandorchestra.com

59

11001 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44106 SEVERANCEHALL.COM

LATE SEATING As a courtesy to the audience members and musicians in the hall, late-arriving patrons are asked to wait quietly until the first convenient break in the program, when ushers will help you to your seats. These seating breaks are at the discretion of the House Manager in consultation with the performing artists.

PAGERS, CELL PHONES, AND WRISTWATCH ALARMS Please silence any alarms or ringers on pagers, mobile phones, or wristwatches prior to the start of the concert.

H A I L E D A S O N E of the world’s most beautiful concert halls, Severance Hall has been home to The Cleveland Orchestra since its opening on February 5, 1931. After that first concert, a Cleveland newspaper editorial stated: “We believe that Mr. Severance intended to build a temple to music, and not a temple to wealth; and we believe it is his intention that all music lovers should be welcome there.” John Long Severance (president of the Musical Arts Association, 1921-1936) and his wife, Elisabeth, donated the funds necessary to erect this magnificent building. Designed by Walker & Weeks, its elegant Georgian exterior was constructed to harmonize with the classical architecture of other prominent buildings in the University Circle area. The interior of the building reflects a combination of design styles, including Art Deco, Egyptian Revival, Classicism, and Modernism. An extensive renovation, restoration, and expansion of the facility was completed in January 2000.

60

PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEOGRAPHY, AND RECORDING Audio recording, photography, and videography are prohibited during performances at Severance Hall. Photographs of the hall and selfies to share with others can be taken when the performance is not in progress. As courtesy to others, please turn off any phone of device that makes noise or emits light.

IN THE EVENT OF AN EMERGENCY Contact an usher or a member of house staff if you require medical assistance. Emergency exits are clearly marked throughout the building. Ushers and house staff will provide instructions in the event of an emergency.

AGE RESTRICTIONS Regardless of age, each person must have a ticket and be able to sit quietly in a seat throughout the performance. Cleveland Orchestra subscription concerts are not recommended for children under the age of 8. However, there are several age-appropriate series designed specifically for children and youth, including: Musical Rainbows, (recommended for children 3 to 6 years old) and Family Concerts (for ages 7 and older).

THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA STORE A wide variety of items relating to The Cleveland Orchestra — including logo apparel, compact disc recordings, and gifts — are available for purchase at the Cleveland Orchestra Store before and after concerts and at intermission.

The Store is also open Tuesday thru Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call 216-231-7478 for more information, or visit clevelandorchestra.com.

Severance Hall

The Cleveland Orchestra

AUTUMN

2 015

Violins of Hope A remarkable collection of instruments comes to Cleveland — witnesses to history, they sound again with resilience and hope . . .

THE CLEVEL AND ORCHESTR A is among more than a half-dozen organizations from across Northeast Ohio who are partnering together this fall to present a collaborative series of events, exhibitions, education presentations and workshops, and musical performances. The program, titled Violins of Hope, centers around a unique group of violins that were witness to humanity’s perseverance in the face of incomprehensible darkness during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.

Noted Israeli master violinmaker Amnon Weinstein has restored and collected a group of invaluable instruments, which will be brought to Cleveland in fall 2015 to provide unprecedented educational, cultural, and personal experiences. Played before and during the Holocaust, the instruments have been painstakingly restored and serve as testaments to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of music to lift hearts in even the most horrific of circumstances. The full collection includes more than 45 Holocaust-era violins, some with the Star of David on the back and others with names and dates inscribed within the instrument. The violins have been played in concerts around the world, most recently by the Berlin Philharmonic earlier this year.

“The opportunity to bring these extraordinary instruments to greater Cleveland immediately united organizations and individuals across the region,” says Richard Bogomolny, Chairman of the Musical Arts Association (the non-profit organization that operates The Cleveland Orchestra) and one of the leaders of

Summers@Severance

Violins of Hope

61

FAEL

VIOLINS OF HOPE

the Violins of Hope Cleveland effort. “A profound personal story lives within each violin, and together they possess the potential to leave an indelible impact on every person who sees and hears them.”

Among highlights of Violins of Hope performances and activities in Cleveland are two special concerts. On Sunday, September 27, a Gala Celebration concert takes place with The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of music director Franz Welser-Möst, and featuring violinist Shlomo Mintz as soloist, with some of the Violins of Hope instruments being played. This special event marks the dedication of the newly-renovated Silver Hall, part of Case Western Reserve’s Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center at The Temple-Tifereth Israel.

And on October 14, 2015, the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra will present a free community concert at Severance Hall invoking the power of music to inspire new generations and bring people together in peace.

The Gala concert in September will be telecast live by ideastream (the region’s nonprofit public media organization that includes WVIZ/PBS, 90.3 WCPN, and WCLV 104.9 Classical), who will also develop a half-hour documentary highlighting Northeast Ohio’s experiences with the project as well as individual stories involving the instruments.

Following the Gala concert, the instruments of Violins of Hope will be featured in a major exhibition at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, running from October 1 through January 3, 2016.

A wide variety of education projects for students and the community are

62

also planned. The Cleveland Orchestra’s fall education concerts for students will be centered around the Violins of Hope theme in partnership with the nonprofit group Facing History and Ourselves who will lead a broad education and engagement effort for grades 7-12 throughout the autumn in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, the schools of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, and in suburban districts and private schools across Northeast Ohio. Programs, lectures, films, exhibitions, adult learning sessions, and performances involving faculty and students from Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music are also scheduled, with additional events sponsored by a variety of community arts and cultural organizations.

Thanks to the vision and generous support of a group of committed community sponsors, Violins of Hope Cleveland will be a landmark project. This will be only the second time that the violins have been to North America, and the first time that they will be the centerpiece for such a broad spectrum of programming, spanning three months and reaching audiences throughout Northeast Ohio and beyond.

For more details about the Violins of Hope project and associated activities and performances, please visit the website violinsofhopecle.org.

Violins of Hope

The Cleveland Orchestra

at S e v e r a n c e H a l l

THREE CLASSIC FILMS WITH LIVE ACCOMPANIMENT

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME OCT 30, 2015

BACK TO THE FUTURE DEC 10, 2015

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN APR 26, 2016

Todd Wilson, organ*

The Cleveland Orchestra Brett Mitchell, conductor

The Cleveland Orchestra Richard Kaufman, conductor

Power up your DeLorean . . . recharge your flux capacitor . . . and get ready to celebrate the 30th anniversary of an unforgettable movie classic as you’ve never seen and heard it before! Alan Silvestri’s dazzling musical score includes approximately fifteen minutes of brand-new music, all performed by The Cleveland Orchestra.

She’s Alive!!! The 1935 classic horror film with legendary film composer Franz Waxman’s evocative score played live by The Cleveland Orchestra. Starring Colin Clive, Elsa Lanchester, and Boris Karloff.

FRI at 8:00 p.m.

Celebrate Halloween with this classic 1923 silent film . . . with accompaniment improvised live by acclaimed organist Todd Wilson. The fully improvised accompaniment features Severance Hall’s mighty Norton Memorial Organ, considered one of the finest concert organs ever built. *Please note that The Cleveland Orchestra does not appear on this program.

THU at 7:30 p.m.

TUE at 7:30 p.m.

Back to the Future ™ & © Universal Studios and U-Drive Joint Venture. All rights reserved.

PLUS, SUBSCRIBERS CAN ADD THIS CONCERT TO THEIR SERIES.

HOME ALONE DEC 16, 2015 WED at 7:30 p.m.

A true holiday favorite, this beloved comedy classic features renowned composer John Williams’s memorable score performed live by The Cleveland Orchestra.

Hilarious and heart-warming, Home Alone is holiday fun for the entire family!

Home Alone © 1990 Twentieth Century Fox. All rights reserved.

The Cleveland Orchestra’s At the Movies series is sponsored by PNC Bank.

2015-16 Severance Hall Season

Summers@Severance

About the Music

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TICKETS | 216-231-1111 or clevelandorchestra.com

A quiet park comes to life

University Circle Inc.’s WOW! Wade Oval Wednesdays

... WITH INVESTMENT BY CUYAHOGA ARTS & CULTURE Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) uses public dollars approved by you to bring arts and culture to every corner of our County. From grade schools to senior centers to large public events and investments to small neighborhood art projects and educational outreach, we are leveraging your investment for everyone to experience.

Your Investment: Strengthening Community Visit cacgrants.org/impact to learn more.