Programme Notes | New Year's with Chen Reiss

Programme Notes

New Year’s Concert with Chen Reiss Thu 11 January 2024 • 20.15 Sun 14 January 2024 • 14.15

PROGRAMME conductor Kristiina Poska soprano Chen Reiss Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Overture Die Zauberflöte (1791) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart • From Le nozze di Figaro (1786): E Susanna non vien! – Dove sono • From Don Giovanni (1787): Crudele – Non mi dir Thomas Beijer (1988) Bonfire with Wish Lantern and Rising Waltz (2023; world premiere, commissioned by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra) Intermission Johann Strauss jr. (1825-1899) An der schönen blauen Donau (1866) Franz Lehár (1870-1948) • From Die lustige Witwe (1905): Vilja-Lied • From Giuditta (1934): Meine Lippen sie küssen so heiß Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) From Slavonic Dances, op. 46 (1878) • No. 1. Furiant: presto • No. 2. Dumka: allegretto scherzando – allegro vivo • No. 6. Sousedská: allegretto scherzando • No. 7. Skocná: allegro assai Concert ends at around 22.15/16.15 One hour before the start of the concert, Alexander Klapwijk will give an introduction (in Dutch) to the programme, admission €5.

Tickets are available at the hall, payment by debit card. The introduction is free for Vrienden.

Most recent performances by our orchestra: Mozart Overture Die Zauberflöte: Dec 2018, conductor Edo de Waart Mozart E Susanna non vien! – Dove sono: Jan 1991, soprano Arleen Auger, conductor James Conlon Mozart Crudele – Non mi dir: first performance Beijer Bonfire: world premiere Strauss An der schönen blauen Donau: Sep 2020, conductor Valery Gergiev Lehár Meine Lippen: Apr 2017 (Banda), soprano Lilian Farahani Lehár Vilja-Lied: Aug 2015, soprano Kelly God, conductor Antony Hermus Dvořák Slavonic Dances op. 46: Nov 2007, conductor Alexander Briger Cover: Foto Natalia Sobolivska (Unsplash).

Wish lantern. Photo Quang Nguyen Vinh (Pexels)

Johann Strauss Monument by Edmund Hellmer, Vienna City Park. Photo bogdan1971 (Wikimedia)

Viennese glitter The reputation of Vienna as a city of music seems set in stone. No other European city has produced and attracted so many musical geniuses over so long a period of time.

Here Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven developed the symphony as a musical form, and here, too, Schubert composed over six hundred songs.

Brahms sought refuge here, Bruckner defied conservative critics, and Mahler became a phenomenon. Musical theatre also flourished: operetta became so popular that the various members of the Strauss family were unable to keep up with demand, no matter how widely they cast the family net for more waltz kings.

In the latter days of the empire, its capital Vienna presented a less fairytale image. The city had become a cesspit of social evils and a hotbed for subversive ideas. But its hunger for music remained unabated. Whilst modernists such as Arnold Schönberg let rip with their atonal compositions, waltzes and operettas continued to meet the need for escapism. Even the radical Schönberg was a Johann Strauss fan. Exuberant Vienna is still revived through its New Year concerts, this time with even a Dutch contribution: versatile artist Thomas Beijer has composed for the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra a celebratory bonfire of a waltz.

Mozart’s women

As brilliant and everlasting his music may be, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was still a man of flesh and blood. His letters and diaries are full of devil-may-care humour, and his immense talent was no guarantee that he could make ends meet at the end of the month. It happened more than once that upon completion of an opera his fee was paid directly to one or other of his creditors; to be able to keep something for himself he reworked parts of the operas for smaller, itinerant ensembles.

His overtures also took on a life of their own and livened up many Viennese parties. In fact, in his own time Mozart’s work was rarely heard in the reverential silence of a concert hall, and much more often as dinner-party music, or even dance music, in crowded rooms.

Nevertheless, it was music that captured your imagination. The overture to the fairytale opera The Magic Flute, for example, is full of attentiongrabbing themes; appetizers, so to speak, for the great arias ahead. And what we also notice in Mozart’s operas is how strikingly often his most beautiful arias are handed to strong-willed, selfconfident female characters. His aria E Susanna non vien! from The Marriage of Figaro presents us with a countess musing over her once happy marriage, whilst her husband - again - gets up to no good. And in his aria Crudele – Non mi dir from Don Giovanni, a young woman asks for her planned marriage to be delayed for the duration of the mourning period for her father.

Walz kings

Given that the pianist/composer/writer/filmmaker Thomas Beijer always seems to have room to do more, he was happy to accept the commission by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra for a typical new year composition – in other words a waltz with lots of fireworks.

It may have seemed that Maurice Ravel had the last word on the waltz form a hundred years ago, whilst Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy and Oliver Knussen have also composed specifically firework-inspired pieces. Beijer, however, ignored these intimidating examples, and composed an orchestral miniature that could not be described as anything other than catchy. It evokes an image of people dancing around a bonfire, focusing in and out on particular groups. The rhythm too, keeps changing. At first, only fragments of a waltz are audible; only towards the end is everyone pulled along. A point of calm, half-way through the work, signifies the release of the wish lantern. It is an intense moment (what wish is written on the card that floats away with the lantern?) and a subtle hint of the reality that lurks beneath the festive spirit.

No new year’s concert would be complete without Johann Strauss. And mostly we here mean Johann Strauss the Younger, who exceeded in popularity his composer father (also named Johann). It was Johann the Younger who won international acclaim as the ‘Waltz King’, composing over five hundred dance pieces which he performed with his own orchestra. His admirers included composers of more ‘serious’ music. Johannes Brahms, for example, once stated that he wished he had composed Strauss’s top hit The Blue Danube himself, and even the rather difficult Arnold Schönberg re-scored Strauss waltzes for small ensembles so that they could be performed even more often. Befriended by Emperor Franz Josef I, Strauss became the artistic symbol of a Habsburg Empire already in decline, and he provided the Viennese imperial court with the last remnants of glitter.

Evergreens

These same declining days were also the heyday of Franz Lehár. His Hungarian origins did nothing to obstruct his association with the Viennese musical tradition: in those days Austria and Hungary were closely linked. Lehár continued the tradition of operettas begun by Johann Strauss and Franz von Suppé and in 1905 produced his most famous work The Merry Widow, a musical comedy about high jinks in high society. In the years that followed, changing times forced his field of work into a tight corner. The arrival of film would drastically change

Beijer’s orchestral miniature evokes an image of people dancing around a bonfire the entertainment scene and replace operetta.

Lehár held his ground for a long time more, thanks to his musical flair and adaptability. Giuditta, his swansong, dates from 1934 and is set - strikingly – in Italian-occupied Libya. It also represents the highpoint of Lehár’s collaboration with tenor Richard Tauber, around whose voice the entire operetta was actually contrived. Fortunately, the eponymous heroin Giuditta was also occasionally allowed to join in; Meine Lippen sie küssen so heiß, the song with which, as a nightclub singer in Tripoli, she gives the audience a glimpse into her soul, has since become an evergreen.

The fact that Léhar turned to composing at all is all down to the advice from his teacher Antonin Dvořák, whose Slavonic Dances bring this concert to a close. The composer, inspired by Czech folk music, took his composition way beyond the nation’s borders: it was with these exciting dances that he made his international breakthrough.

Michiel Cleij

Kristiina Poska • conductor Born: Türi, Estonia Current position: chief conductor Flanders Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor Latvian National Symphony Orchestra Education: first piano lessons at age eight; Music Academy Türi (piano), Estonian Academy of Music and Theater, Tallinn (choral conducting) and Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, Berlin (orchestral conducting) Awards: Malko Competition 2012 (Audience Prize), German Conductor’s Prize (2013) Breakthrough: 2010, Verdi’s La traviata at the Komische Oper, Berlin Subsequently: Opera at Staatsoper Stuttgart, Semperoper Dresden, Royal Swedish Opera, Norwegian Opera, English National Opera, Finnish National Opera, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Wiener Volksoper; concert programmes with Münchner Philharmoniker, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, BBC Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2024 Photo: Kaupo Kikkas

Photo: Paul Marc Mitchell

Chen Reiss • soprano, Artist in Residence Born: Herzliya, Israel Education: piano from age five, first singing lessons at fourteen Debut: member of the ensemble of the Bavarian State Opera Solo appearances: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris Opera: Wiener Staatsoper, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Teatro alla Scala, Semperoper Dresden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Dutch National Opera, Wiener Festwochen, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Israeli Opera Roles: Sophie/Rosenkavalier, Gretel/ Hänsel und Gretel, Pamina/Zauberflöte, Zerlina/Don Giovanni, Gilda/Rigoletto, Liu/ Turandot, Ginevra/Ariodante Recitals: with pianists Charles Spencer and Alexander Schmalcz Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2023

Agenda Concert for Ukraine Sat 13 January 2024 • 20.15 conductor Olha Dondyk piano Antonii Baryshevskyi piano Anna Fedorova Lunyov Libera me for String Orchestra Silvestrov Epitaph Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 Sun 11 February 2024 • 14.15 Fri 16 February 2024 • 20.15 conductor Lahav Shani soprano Chen Reiss Strauss Six orchestral songs Mahler Symphony No. 6 ‘Tragic‘ Valentine’s Recital Wed 14 February 2024 • 20.15 soprano Chen Reiss piano Lahav Shani clarinet Julien Hervé Schumann Fantasiestücke Schumann Myrthen (selection) Spohr Deutsche Lieder (selection) Ben-Haim Three Songs Without Words Mahler Das himmlische Leben Schubert Der Hirt auf dem Felsen Music for Breakfast No. 3 Sun 25 February 2024 • 10.30 with Quirine Scheffers (violin), David Fernández Alonso (horn) and colleagues from the orchestra Saint-Saëns Romance for horn and piano Koechlin Quatre petites pièces for horn, violin and piano Debussy Violin Sonata Dauprat Horn Quintet in F Major Thu 21 March 2024 • 20.15 Fri 22 March 2024 • 20.15 conductor Lahav Shani piano Seong-Jin Cho Rachmaninoff Paganini Rhapsody Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet (selection)

Musicians Viola Clarinet Anne Huser Julien Hervé Roman Spitzer Bruno Bonansea Galahad Samson Honorary Clarinet/ José Moura Nunes Conductor Bass Clarinet Yannick Nézet-Séguin Kerstin Bonk Romke-Jan Wijmenga Lex Prummel Janine Baller Principal Guest Bassoon Francis Saunders Conductor Veronika Lénártová Pieter Nuytten Tarmo Peltokoski Lola Descours Rosalinde Kluck Marianne Prommel León van den Berg First Violin Marieke Blankestijn, Olfje van der Klein Bassoon/ concertmeester Contrabassoon Cello Quirine Scheffers Hans Wisse Hed Yaron Meyerson Emanuele Silvestri Eugene Lifschitz Saskia Otto Horn Joanna Pachucka Arno Bons David Fernández Alonso Mireille van der Wart Daniel Petrovitsch Felipe Santos Freitas Silva Mario Rio Rachel Browne Wendy Leliveld Gé van Leeuwen Maria Dingjan Richard Speetjens Eelco Beinema Marie-José Schrijner Laurens Otto Carla Schrijner Noëmi Bodden Pierre Buizer Pepijn Meeuws Petra Visser Yi-Ting Fang Sophia Torrenga Trumpet Hadewijch Hofland Alex Elia Double Bass Annerien Stuker Simon Wierenga Matthew Midgley Alexandra van Jos Verspagen Ying Lai Green Beveren Jonathan Focquaert Robert Franenberg Trombone Second Violin Pierre Volders Charlotte Potgieter Harke Wiersma Alexander Verbeek Arjen Leendertz Cecilia Ziano Remko de Jager Ricardo Neto Frank de Groot Laurens van Vliet Bass trombone Flute Tomoko Hara Rommert Groenhof Juliette Hurel Elina Staphorsius Joséphine Olech Jun Yi Dou Désirée Woudenberg Tuba Bob Bruyn Hendrik-Jan Renes Eefje Habraken Flute/piccolo Maija Reinikainen Percussion Beatriz Da Baião Wim Ruitenbeek Danny van de Wal Babette van den Berg Ronald Ent Oboe Melanie Broers Martijn Boom Remco de Vries Lana Trimmer Adriaan Feyaerts Karel Schoofs Anja van der Maten Harp Oboe/Cor Anglais Charlotte Sprenkels Ron Tijhuis Chief Conductor Lahav Shani