Negro Folk Symphony
Sun 16 March 2025 • 14.15
PROGRAMME
conductor Roderick Cox
piano Alexander Gavrylyuk
Richard Strauss (1864–1949)
Don Juan, op. 20 (1888–1889)
Symphonic poem for large orchestra after Nikolaus Lenau
Edvard Grieg (1843–1907)
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.16 (1868)
• Allegro molto moderato
• Adagio
• Allegro moderato molto e marcato –Quasi presto – Andante maestoso
intermission
William L. Dawson (1899–1990)
Negro Folk Symphony (1934/1952)
Dutch Premiere
• The Bond of Africa
• Hope in the Night
• O, Le’ Me Shine, Shine Like a Morning Star!
Concert ends at around 16.15
Most recent performances by our orchestra:
Strauss Don Juan: Sep 2022, conductor
Tarmo Peltokoski
Grieg Piano Concerto: Feb 2020, piano
Javier Perianes, conductor Krzysztof
Urbański
Dawson Negro Folk Symphony: first performance, Dutch Premiere
One hour before the start of the concert, Patrick van Deurzen will give an introduction (in Dutch) to the programme, admission €7,50. Tickets are available at the hall, payment by debit card. The introduction is free for Vrienden.
Cover: Photo Nsey Benajah (Unsplash)
William Dawson, c. 1930. Portrait by Gushiniere Studio, Chicago. Coll. University of Massachusets Amhurst Libraries, W.E.B. Du Bois Papers
Grieg: Piano Concerto. Sleeve design (c. 1950) by Alex Steinweiss for Remington Records
Shine like a Morning Star
Richard Strauss conquered the world with his brilliant instrumentations. Edvard Grieg won over his public with the folk-music influences in his work. William Dawson combines these two talents in his lavishly orchestrated Negro Folk Symphony, in which he follows a trail to his African roots.
Bravado and seduction
At the age of 25, Richard Strauss published his first real symphonic poem, Don Juan, a work based on the play of the same name written in verse form by Nikolaus Lenau. The music depicts the life of a womanising nobleman in a series of narrative episodes. The introductory theme to the work introduces us to Don Juan himself, and weaves like a common thread through the entire work. Via various scenes of love and adventure, Strauss leads the hero to a masked ball. At the high point of the ball, the atmosphere changes. In the scene that follows, we find Don Juan in a churchyard by the grave of a nobleman he had once killed. The nobleman’s son suddenly appears and kills Don Juan in the inevitable duel that follows. In the quiet closing bars of the work, we hear Don Juan taking his last breaths. Such a quiet end signified the vibrant launch of Strauss’s career: full of bravado and seductive instrumentation, Don Juan established his name nationally and internationally.
Happy and at ease
At the same age as Richard Strauss – twenty-five - Edvard Grieg also enjoyed his international breakthrough. Not with a symphonic poem,
but a piano concerto – the only one he would ever compose. He drew inspiration not from world literature, but instead from the modest folk music of his native country of Norway. ‘Composers with the status of Bach or Beethoven built great churches and temples with their compositions’, Grieg would later clarify, ‘But it has always been my wish to build villages, places where people could feel happy and at ease. The music of my homeland has always been the model for this.’ In the first movement of his Piano Concerto that model may not yet be so clearly identifiable. The serene Adagio that follows already adopts a more recognisably Norwegian character. However, the final movement especially Grieg lets loose with his mother tongue. In the very first theme of this rondo-style movement we already hear the rhythm of the halling, Norway’s national folk dance. Later in the movement, Grieg imitates the sound of the Hardanger fiddle, the pre-eminent musical instrument of Norwegian folk music, with open fifths, bourdon tones and subtle glissandi. It is exactly these elements that give Grieg’s Piano Concerto such a unique sound – and which establish an affinity with the symphony of William Dawson.
Past and future
William Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony is a masterpiece with a title that is now considered problematic, if not discomforting. However, in the 1930’s, the term negro still conveyed a feeling of pride when adopted by Black American artists. Born in the deep south of the USA in 1899, Dawson’s one and only
symphony honoured above all the negro spiritual music that gave light to his youth. These spirituals are unsung songs in Dawson’s symphony. They form a thread woven through the tight orchestral fabric of his work. ‘I want the listener to say: this can only have been composed by a negro’, said Dawson upon completion of the first version of the work in 1932. His symphony is ‘black’ in terms of its musical elements and ‘white’ in terms of its architecture. One can frequently hear a juba, an African rhythm that was kept alive on the American plantations, performed by singerdancers with the clapping of hands and hitting of their own bodies. Dawson has embedded such an element in a musical construct that would have been unthinkable without the examples of composers such as Dvořák, Franck and Beethoven. The work is imbued with the sounds of Dawson’s youth. Growing up in an environment in which a large part of the population lived in misery in the cotton fields, Dawson himself had the opportunity to study at a good ‘Black’ school, the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Dawson studied spiritual music there and concentrated on this musical tradition in his first compositions. Via Kansas City he found himself aged twenty-five within a typical ‘European-classical’ environment, the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. With the bonus of attending concerts by the neighbouring Chicago Symphony Orchestra. There is a good chance that the lush orchestrations and ‘European’ harmonies of the Negro Folk Symphony find their origins in this period. The work begins with an enchanting horn solo, an original melody composed by Dawson himself. This leads into an older spiritual: Oh, M’ Littl’ Soul Gwine-a Shine. Tranquillity follows on from outbursts. Melodies have their counter-melodies. There is a striking, ecstatic change in atmosphere when the orchestra throws itself wildly into a juba, in which the effect of the clapping
hands is portrayed in all manner of orchestral combinations. In the second movement (‘Hope in the Night’) we hear a disconsolate trudge forward. A depiction, according to Dawson, of ‘250 years of captivity’. This, too, changes: Dawson depicts ‘children happily playing’. But the sense of hopelessness wins through – up to the final movement, when the spiritual O Le’ Me Shine Lik’ a Mornin’ Star offers illumination. And then what follows is a glittering anticipation of the future expressed in the spiritual Hallelujah, Lord I Been Down into the Sea. But what kind of future? Combining with the echoes of the preceding movements, musical themes swirl together within a raging orchestral whirlpool.
Listeners don’t need to be familiar with plantation life to appreciate Dawson’s work
Listeners don’t need to be familiar with plantation life to appreciate Dawson’s work. The work speaks for itself. Something that the conductor Leopold Stokowski well recognised when he and his Philadelphia Orchestra premiered the symphony to great acclaim in 1934. But after the ovations came silence. The sounds of the symphony became forgotten. Years later, Dawson took a journey through West Africa. The experience caused him to sharpen the rhythms of his symphony. Stokowski loved the results and recorded the final version for posterity. And then? Once more a silence. It is noteworthy that only in recent years Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony has found its place in the repertoires of many American orchestras. Not, perhaps, thanks to its title. But perhaps instead due to its unique combination of musical energies.
Paul Janssen (Strauss en Grieg) and Roland de Beer (Dawson)
Roderick Cox • conductor
Born: Macon (GA), USA
Current position: chief conductor Opéra Orchestre National de Montpellier Occitanie Education: Shwob School of Music at Columbus State University, Northwestern University, summer courses conducting in Aspen and Interlochen Awards: Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize 2013
Breakthrough: Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award 2018
Subsequently: Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden
Education programme: Roderick Cox Music Initiative, scholarship programme for young musicians from underrepresented communities
Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2025
Alexander Gavrylyuk • piano
Born: Kharkiv, Ukraine
Education: first piano lessons at 7, further studies from age 13 with Victor Makarov at the Australian Institute of Music Awards: Winner Horowitz Competition Kyiv 1999, Winner Hamamatsu Piano Competition Japan 2000
Breakthrough: Golden Medal Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition Tel Aviv 2005
Subsequently: solo appearances with the orchestras of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Seoul and Tokyo, Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Recitals: Musikverein Wenen, Tonhalle Zürich, Victoria Hall Geneva, Southbank Centre’s International Piano Series, Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Suntory Hall, Tokyo Opera City Hall, Tokyo City Concert Hall
Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2008
Photo: Susie Knoll
Photo: Marco Borggreve
Agenda
Fri 21 March 2025 • 20.15
conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin
soprano Angel Blue
Strauss Vier letzte Lieder
Bruckner Symphony No. 3
Fri 28 March 2025 • 20.15
Sat 29 March 2025 • 20.15
conductor Joe Hisaishi
harp Emmanuel Ceysson
Hisaishi Adagio for Strings and two Harps
Hisaishi Harp Concerto
Ravel La valse
Hisaishi Spirited Away Suite
Thu 3 April 2025 • 20.15
Fri 4 April 2025 • 20.15
Sun 6 April 2025 • 14.15
conductor Lahav Shani
violin Hilary Hahn
Beethoven Symphony No. 2
Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1
Mozart Symphony No. 39
Thu 17 April 2025 • 19.30
Fri 18 April 2025 • 19.30
Sat 19 April 2025 • 19.30
conductor Jonathan Cohen
soprano Lore Binon
countertenor Hugh Cutting
tenor (evangelist) Stuart Jackson
tenor (arias) Peter Gijsbertsen
bass (Christ) Neal Davies
bass (arias) Roderick Williams
chorus Laurens Collegium
Bach St-Matthew-Passion
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Chief Conductor
Lahav Shani
Honorary Conductor
Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Principal Guest Conductor
Tarmo Peltokoski
First Violin
Marieke Blankestijn, concertmaster
Tjeerd Top, concertmaster
Quirine Scheffers
Hed Yaron Meyerson
Saskia Otto
Arno Bons
Rachel Browne
Maria Dingjan
Marie-José Schrijner
Noëmi Bodden
Petra Visser
Sophia Torrenga
Hadewijch Hofland
Annerien Stuker
Alexandra van Beveren
Marie Duquesnoy
Giulio Greci
Second Violin
Charlotte Potgieter
Frank de Groot
Laurens van Vliet
Elina Staphorsius
Jun Yi Dou
Bob Bruyn
Eefje Habraken
Maija Reinikainen
Babette van den Berg
Melanie Broers
Tobias Staub
Sarah Decamps
Viola
Anne Huser
Roman Spitzer
Musicians
Galahad Samson
José Moura Nunes
Kerstin Bonk
Janine Baller
Francis Saunders
Veronika Lénártová
Rosalinde Kluck
León van den Berg
Olfje van der Klein
Jan Navarro
Cello
Emanuele Silvestri
Joanna Pachucka
Daniel Petrovitsch
Mario Rio
Eelco Beinema
Carla Schrijner
Pepijn Meeuws
Yi-Ting Fang
Killian White
Double Bass
Matthew Midgley
Ying Lai Green
Jonathan Focquaert
Robert Franenberg
Arjen Leendertz
Ricardo Neto
Javier Clemen Martínez
Flute
Juliette Hurel
Joséphine Olech
Manon Gayet
Flute/Piccolo
Beatriz Baião
Oboe
Karel Schoofs
Anja van der Maten
Oboe/Cor Anglais
Ron Tijhuis
Clarinet
Julien Hervé
Bruno Bonansea
Alberto Sánchez García
Clarinet/ Bass Clarinet
Romke-Jan Wijmenga
Bassoon
Pieter Nuytten
Lola Descours
Marianne Prommel
Bassoon/ Contrabassoon
Hans Wisse
Horn
David Fernández Alonso
Felipe Freitas
Wendy Leliveld
Richard Speetjens
Laurens Otto
Pierre Buizer
Trumpet
Alex Elia
Adrián Martínez
Simon Wierenga
Jos Verspagen
Trombone
Pierre Volders
Alexander Verbeek
Remko de Jager
Bass Trombone
Rommert Groenhof
Tuba
Hendrik-Jan Renes
Percussion
Danny van de Wal
Ronald Ent
Martijn Boom
Harp Albane Baron