PROGRAM NOTES

Hartmann died of a heart attack in 1873 (age 39), thus abruptly ending a promising career. A Hartmann Memorial Exhibition of over 400 of his paintings, drawings, sketches and designs took place in St. Petersburg in 1874. Mussorgsky attended the exhibition and was inspired by it to compose his Pictures at an Exhibition, a virtuoso piece for solo piano. The work was not published during Mussorgsky’s lifetime and as far as we know there were no public performances before Mussorgsky’s death in 1881.

The piece simulates a thoughtful and stirring walk through the exhibition. Mussorgsky gives us ten movements that represent the varied emotions of the Russian people. Ten Hartmann works are viewed through Mussorgsky’s musical lens and there is also a recurring promenade theme (walking between pictures) that provides transitions between the movements. The promenade theme is transformed each time to depict the viewer’s emotional reaction to the just viewed Hartmann work, and to provide a transition to the next. The ten movements are:

I. Gnome

Hartmann’s work depicts a peculiar Christmas tree ornament in the shape of a gnome. Mussorgsky’s depiction is grotesque, but as Emilia Fried wrote, “The gnome is related to other characters in Mussorgsky’s works where behind an ugly outward appearance one senses a living and suffering soul.”

II. The Old Castle

Here Mussorgsky’s depiction of an old Italian castle combines a pedal tone in the bass (that persists through the entire movement) and a modal haunting love-song melody above.

III. Tuileries (Dispute of Children after Play)

We hear the excited voices of French children as they play and quarrel in a Paris park.

IV. Bydlo

In a Jewish ghetto in Poland, oxen struggle to do their hard work pulling a heavy load. The melody is probably based on a folk song, played in this Ravel orchestration by the tuba.

V. Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks

Hartmann’s watercolor sketch is part of a stage and costume design. Mussorgsky gives us the fanciful chicks, still partly in their shells, and musically imitates their clucking and the quick fluttering of feathers.

VI. “Samuel” Goldenberg and “Schmuyle”

Hartmann had given Mussorgsky two pencil drawings of Jewish men. Mussorgsky lent them to the exhibition, and he combines the two into one musical movement. The first is “Samuel Goldenberg, the rich Jew, who speaks in assertive authoritative tones. The second “Schmuÿle” (Yiddish for Samuel) is the poor Jew whose depiction recalls the high chanting voice of the synagogue. Both are stereotypes that were commonplace in Russia at the time, when anti-Semitism was about to turn even more ugly and violent. The serious and deadly pogroms were to begin only a few years later after the assassination of Emperor Alexander II in 1881.

VII. Limoges. The Marketplace (The Big News)

Mussorgsky depicts the gossiping, chattering and quarreling of women as they shop at the market in Limoges. There is much commotion and some confusion (most of it good natured) as the women go about their business.

VIII. Catacombs (A Roman Burial Chamber)

Hartmann’s watercolor depicts three men (one of them is Hartmann) in the Paris catacombs. The painting also shows stacked skulls in the murky light. Mussorgsky’s music is slow, reverential, haunting, frightening, and full of harmonic and dynamic surprises.

IX. The Hut on Hen’s Legs (Baba Yaga)

Hartmann’s sketch is of an elaborate clock housed in a decorative house that stands on chicken legs. Baba Yaga was a traditional Russian witch who was both fascinating and dangerous. Mussorgsky’s driving rhythms suggest the clock theme, and the threatening and intriguing aspects are Baba Yaga are on full display.

X. The Bogatyr Gate (In the Ancient Capital, Kiev)

The Great Gate of Kiev (now known as Kyiv) was built in the 11th century and was one of three gateways into the walled city. For centuries it was an important symbol of the city, but after its destruction in the Middle Ages only ruins remained. In the 1870’s there was Russian interest in rebuilding the gate, and Hartmann produced a sketch of a possible new design. It was this sketch that inspired Mussorgsky’s triumphant final movement which suggests both the grandeur and religious significance of the gate. A Russian chorale is quoted, and the promenade theme makes a joyous appearance near the end.

The gate was not rebuilt in the 19th century. Rather, in 1982 a new gate was constructed in celebration of the 1500th anniversary of Kyiv, though most historians agree that this new gate is completely different from the original. Some have suggested that it should be dismantled so that the ruins of the original gate can be recovered.

Ravel Orchestration

Pictures was not popular as a solo piano work. It was rarely performed, but in 1922 everything changed. The French composer Maurice Ravel was commissioned to write a transcription for full orchestra. Ravel brings all his consummate skill as an orchestrator to this famous and wildly popular transcription. Ravel is quite faithful to Mussorgsky’s original version, but he brings color and life in ways that just aren’t practical for a solo pianist. There’s even an innovative solo for saxophone! The Ravel orchestration is so popular that we tend to think of it as the original version, and the solo piano version as the transcription. And after the Ravel version became well known, pianists took up the solo piano version more often.

The Ravel version is a thrilling showpiece for the orchestra, a worthy combination of Mussorgsky’s original distinctive vision and Ravel’s vivid orchestral imagination.

MUSIC DIRECTOR & CONDUCTOR

Mitchell Sardou Klein Music Director & Conductor

Music Director and Conductor Mitchell Sardou Klein brings extensive conducting experience in the US, Europe, Australia and Japan to his leadership of the Peninsula Symphony. During his 36 years on the Symphony’s podium, he has guest conducted the Seattle Symphony, New Polish Philharmonic, Suddetic Philharmonic, Richmond Symphony, Eastern Philharmonic and many other orchestras in the US and Europe. In California he has led Symphony San Jose (formerly Symphony Silicon Valley), the San Jose Symphony, the Santa Rosa Symphony, the Inland Empire/Riverside Philharmonic, Ballet San Jose, the California Riverside Ballet and the Livermore-Amador Philharmonic and others. He co-founded and is Music Director of the Peninsula Youth Orchestra, which he has taken on concert tours of England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Belgium, Holland, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Latvia, and Estonia.

Maestro Klein directed over a hundred concerts as Associate Conductor of the Kansas City Philharmonic (where he was also Principal Pops Conductor and Principal Conductor of Starlight Theater, the Philharmonic’s summer home), and also served as Music Director of the Santa Cruz Symphony. He also has extensive experience in conducting ballet orchestras, including the Kansas City, Lone Star, Oakland, and Westport Ballets, as well as the Theater Ballet of San Francisco and les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. Before turning to the podium, he performed as a cellist for many years. Known to most everyone as Mitch, he enjoys travel, photography, jazz and visual arts in his spare time.

Since 1984, he has been Director of the Irving M. Klein International String Competition. Held in San Francisco each June, the Competition has become one of the most prominent in the world, featuring prizes totaling over $35,000, attracting applicants from more than twenty nations annually, and launching numerous major international concert careers.

Critics have consistently praised his work. The San José Mercury described his performance with Symphony Silicon Valley in 2012 as a “gorgeous performance; big, enveloping and wonderfully luxuriant.” The San Mateo County Times described him in 2007 as “Super Conductor: Mitchell Sardou Klein, music director of the Peninsula Symphony, led his musicians through another triumphant concert. The Peninsula Symphony just keeps getting better and better. Great works and great performances by all.” The Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza proclaimed, “The American conductor quickly established a fine rapport with his orchestra. Klein is a musician who has the musical score in his head, rather than his

MUSIC DIRECTOR & CONDUCTOR

head in the score, which he demonstrated ably. The creative conception and artistic shape which he brings to his work comes from deep inside him.”

Maestro Klein is a winner of many prestigious awards, including the 2008 Diamond Award for Best Individual Artist, the Silver Lei Award from the 2009 Honolulu Film Festival (for the World Premiere of Giancarlo Aquilanti’s La Poverta), the 2000 ASCAP Award for Programming of American Music on Foreign Tour, the 2001 Jullie Billiart Award from the College of Notre Dame for Outstanding Community Service, a 1996 award for the year’s best television performance program in the Western States (for the one-hour PBS program about him and the Peninsula Symphony) as well as the 1993 Bravo Award for his contribution to the Bay Area’s cultural life.

Mr. Klein was born in New York City, into a musical family that included members of the Claremont and Budapest String Quartets. He began cello studies at age four with his father, Irving Klein, founder of the Claremont Quartet. His mother, Elaine Hartong Klein, danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet.

Cited for his “keen judgment, tight orchestral discipline, feeling for tempo, and unerring control,” Maestro Klein has conducted many significant world, American, and West Coast premieres, including works by Bohuslav Martinu, Meyer Kupferman, Joan Tower, Hans Kox, George Barati, Benjamin Lees, Giancarlo Aquilanti, Melissa Hui, Rodion Shchedrin, Brian Holmes, Ron Miller, Lee Actor, Michael Thurber, Jonathan Russell, Alvin Brehm, and Margaret Garwood. He has appeared frequently on national and international broadcasts, including National Public Radio, the Voice of America, the WFMT Fine Arts Network, PBS Television, and KQED television. He lives in Oakland, California with his wife, violist Patricia Whaley. Their daughter, Elizabeth, lives and works in Washington D.C.