Programme Notes | Yuja Wang & Tarmo Peltokoski

Programme Notes

Yuja Wang & Tarmo Peltokoski Fri 3 November 2023 • 20.15 Sun 5 November 2023 • 14.15

PROGRAMME conductor Tarmo Peltokoski piano Yuja Wang Béla Bartók (1881-1945) Romanian Folk Dances Sz. 68, BB 76 (1915/1917) • Joc cu bâtă (Stick Dance) • Brâul (Sash Dance) • Pe loc (In One Spot) • Buciumeana (Dance from Bucsum) • Poargă Românească (Romanian Polka) • Mărunțel (Fast Dance) Béla Bartók Piano Concerto No. 2, Sz. 95, BB 101 (1930–31) • Allegro • Adagio – Presto – Più adagio • Allegro molto Intermission Richard Strauss (1864-1949) Also sprach Zarathustra, op.30 (1895–96) Symphonic poem (freely after Friedrich Nietzsche) for large orchestra • Einleitung, oder Sonnenaufgang • Von den Hinterweltlern • Von der großen Sehnsucht • Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften • Das Grablied • Von der Wissenschaft • Der Genesende • Das Tanzlied • Nachtwandlerlied Concert ends at around 22.00 Most recent performances by our orchestra: Bartók Romanian Folk Dances: Mar 1981, conductor David Zinman Bartók Piano Concerto No. 2: Sep 1997, piano Zoltán Kocsis, conductor Valery Gergiev Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra: Dec 2018, conductor Edo de Waart

One hour before the start of the concert, Sam Wamper 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.

Cover: Photo Maxim Tajer (Unsplash).

Richard Strauss, around 1895. Engraving after a photo by the Lützel Brothers, Munich.

Henri Matisse: The Romanian Blouse (1940).

Coll. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris.

Music for the twentieth century Neither Béla Bartók nor Richard Strauss were immediately embraced by their respective audiences. Fortunately, this did not deter either composer.

Bartók is now widely celebrated as an innovator of Hungarian music, whilst the opening bars of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra have etched themselves into the collective subconscious.

Armed with an Edison phonograph, Béla Bartók travelled through remote regions in search of the folk music of Hungary and neighbouring countries. Every winter around Christmas time he set out on such journeys. This was the best time of year, when farmers were not working on the land and they were happy to sing into the horn of the phonograph. It would take around twenty minutes to record a song, including the sound recording and making notes. In the short amount of time when he wasn’t teaching at the conservatoire, Bartók was able to collect hundreds of melodies in this way.

Gemstones

The outbreak of World War One put an end to Bartók’s expeditions. And, for this reason, the Christmas of 1914 was the first in many years that he spent at home. It was during this winter that he composed the Romanian Folk Dances based on material that he had collated

over previous years. Bartók added to the folk melodies his own accompaniments, musical introductions and endings: a process that he himself compared to the setting of gemstones into a piece of jewellery. The result was a sparkling, six-movement suite of dances.

The first movement, the Stick Dance, is a solo dance for a young man, who dances various figures before finishing with a high kick towards the ceiling. The Sash Dance is a group dance in which the dancers move around in a circle, holding each other around the waist. The In One Spot Dance involves couples dancing with a rhythmic stamping. Bartók based the Buciumena on a melody he heard in Bucsum. It is followed by a Romanian Polka. The suite ends with the Fast Dance in which the male dancer shows off by dancing around a motionless and apparently indifferent female, jumping in the air on the fourth beat of each bar.

Rotterdam

In the early 1930s Bartók was recognised in his own country as a leading musician. He earned success as a concert pianist and respect as an ethnomusicologist, and was awarded the honour of the Hungarian Corvin Chain by the country’s regent, Miklós Horthy. It was an honour that he turned down, however, because he could not abide the autocratic Horthy and regarded the award of this second-rate honour as an insult in disguise. Nevertheless, despite all this fame, Bartók had still not found popularity as a composer. His First Piano Concerto, for

example – a work that he himself regarded as successful - never became a public favourite. But, in fact, Bartók understood the reason why. ‘It is quite a difficult piece,’ he admitted. ‘Perhaps even very difficult – both for the orchestra and the audience.’

For his Second Piano Concerto he decided to keep things a bit lighter, incorporating catchy melodies, such as the fanfare-like brass motif in the first movement. Folk music also has a large presence in this work, although not literally cited - such as in the Romanian Folk Dances - but

Bartók unleashes the most modern piano techniques of his time in a stirring game of cat and mouse. this time used as rhythmical motifs. In the slow second movement, for example, the piano finds itself in a mysterious environment of muted strings and soft, rhythmic timpani rolls. This represents the proverbial calm before the storm, before Bartók unleashes the most modern piano techniques of his time in a stirring game of cat and mouse.

In 1935, two years after its world premiere, Bartók was invited by Eduard Flipse, chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, to give the first performance of the concerto in The Netherlands as piano soloist.

When, during the first rehearsals, he heard how the musicians of the orchestra struggled with his music, his heart sank. He took a lot of convincing but, in the end, Bartók felt satisfied that everything would turn out fine just as long as he kept his faith in Flipse and helped him in giving clear guidance to the orchestra. It was an approach that paid dividends. ‘At the premiere of his piano concerto the composer himself made a brilliant soloist,’ reported newspaper the

Rotterdams Nieuwsblad, ‘wonderfully supported by conductor Eduard Flipse and his orchestra, who together created a tight-knit ensemble.’

Sunrise

On 12 February 1902 Bartók attended the Hungarian premiere of Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra. The music was a revelation for the young composer, sounding so different from the music of Brahms and Liszt with which he was so familiar. ‘The entire piece reveals a huge genius and is truly original,’ he wrote to his mother. Strauss himself was convinced that he had forged a new path, and dedicated his symphonic poem of 1896 to the twentieth century. Recognising that the conservative public of his home city of Munich was not entirely ready for this new kind of music, Strauss chose to premiere the work in Frankfurt.

His inspiration for Also sprach Zarathustra came from the philosophical novel of the same name

by Friedrich Nietzsche. ‘It was not my intention to capture the book in musical form, but rather to express the development of mankind from the beginning,’ the composer wrote in programme notes at the premiere. The nine sections do not precisely represent the course of this development, but rather express the atmosphere of the various episodes in Nietzsche’s book. As the sun rises, we feel desire, joy and passion.

Then come death, knowledge and healing. In a dance episode – injected with great humour and a knowing wink towards the other Strauss – the composer seduces Zarathustra into a waltz. The work ends as night returns. The clock strikes twelve and the music closes with the same deep sounds from the double basses with which the work began.

Carine Alders

Tarmo Peltokoski Principal Guest Conductor Born: Vaasa, Finland Current position: Music Director Latvia National Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Music Director Designate Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse Education: piano at Kuula College (Vaasa) and the Sibelius Academy (Helsinki), conducting with Jorma Panula, Sakari Oramo, Hannu Lintu and Jukka-Pekka Saraste Breakthrough: 2022: positions in Bremen, Riga, Rotterdam, and Toulouse Before: concerts with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Lahti, Basel Chamber Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France Subsequently: debuts with Hong Kong Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin, Göteborgs Symfoniker, Los Angeles Philharmonic Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2022

Photo: Karen van Gilst

Photo: Norbart Kniat

Yuja Wang - piano Born : Beijing, China Education: Conservatory of Music Beijing; Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with Gary Graffman Awards: Musical America’s Artist of the Year 2017 Breakthrough: 2007, replacing Martha Argerich in Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit Soloist: with the leading orchestras of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, New York, Staatskapelle Dresden, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Artist in residence: among others at Carnegie Hall New York, Konzerthaus Vienna, Philharmonic Orchestra Luxembourg; Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in 2021/22 Chamber Music: with Gautier Capuçon (cello) and Andreas Ottensamer (clarinet) Debut Rotterdam Philharmonic: 2018

Musicians

Agenda Thu 9 November 2023 • 20.15 Fri 10 November 2023 • 20.15 Sun 12 November 2023 • 14.15 conductor Maxim Emelyanychev piano Beatrice Rana Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 Harry Potter in Concert, part 7 Wed 15 November 2023 • 19.30 Thu 16 November 2023 • 19.30 Fri 17 November 2023 • 19.30 Sat 18 Nov. 2023 • 13.30 and 19.30 Sun 19 November 2023 • 13.30 conductor Justin Freer Desplat Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Fri 24 November 2023 • 20.15 conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada cello Daniel Müller-Schott Dvořák Cello Concerto Howard Magnetite Dvořák Symphony No. 7 Music for Breakfast 2 Sun 3 December 2023 • 10.30 Jurriaanse Zaal, de Doelen with Rachel Browne (violin), Matthew Midgley (double bass) and colleagues from the orchestra Parry Two Intermezzi for String Trio Onslow String Quintet ‘The Bullet’ Midgley Folk Trio Bridge Three Traditional English Songs Thu 7 December 2023 • 20.15 Fri 8 December 2023 • 20.15 Sun 10 December 2023 • 14.15 conductor Lahav Shani violin Janine Jansen Sibelius Violin Concerto Pärt Swan Song Debussy La mer

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 Marie-José Schrijner Eelco Beinema 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