SSO Gala: Rachmaninov Piano Concerto 2

SSO GALA

RACHMANINOV PIANO CONCERTO 2 12 April 2019

Esplanade Concert Hall

Performing Home of the SSO Lionel Bringuier, conductor Behzod Abduraimov, piano

PRESENTS

SINGAPORE SYMPHONY ORCHEST RA

12 Apr 19, Fri

SSO GALA: RACHMANINOV PIANO CONCERTO 2 Singapore Symphony Orchestra Lionel Bringuier, conductor MAURICE RAVEL

La Valse 12’

WITOLD LUTOSLAWSKI

Concerto for Orchestra 28’

1.

2.

3.

Intrada: Allegro maestoso Capriccio notturno e Arioso: Vivace Passacaglia, Toccata e Corale: Andante con moto – Allegro giusto

Intermission 20’

SERGEI RACHMANINOV

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 33’

1. Moderato 2. Adagio sostenuto 3. Allegro scherzando

Concert duration: 1 hr 50 mins

Behzod Abduraimov, piano

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S ing a p or e S y mp hon y Or c he s t r a Since its founding in 1979, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) has been Singapore’s flagship orchestra, touching lives through classical music and providing the heartbeat of the cultural scene in the cosmopolitan city-state.

In addition to its subscription series concerts, the orchestra is well-loved for its outdoor and community appearances, and its significant role educating the young people of Singapore. The SSO has also earned an international reputation for its orchestral virtuosity, having garnered sterling reviews for its overseas tours and many successful recordings.

The SSO makes its performing home at the 1,800-seat state-of-the-art Esplanade Concert Hall. More intimate works and all

outreach and community performances take place at the 673-seat Victoria Concert Hall, the home of the SSO. The orchestra performs 100 concerts a year, and its versatile repertoire spans all-time favourites and orchestral masterpieces to exciting cutting-edge premieres. Bridging the musical traditions of East and West, Singaporean and Asian musicians and composers are regularly showcased in the concert season. This has been a core of the SSO’s programming philosophy from the very beginning under Choo Hoey, who was Music Director from 1979 to 1996.

Under the Music Directorship of Lan Shui from 1997 to January 2019, the SSO has performed in Europe, Asia and the United States. In May 2016 the SSO was invited to

perform at the Dresden Music Festival and the Prague Spring International Music Festival.

This successful five‑city tour of Germany and Prague also included the SSO’s return to the Berlin Philharmonie after six years. In 2014 the SSO’s debut at the 120th BBC Proms in London received critical acclaim in the major UK newspapers The Guardian and Telegraph.

The SSO has also performed in China on multiple occasions.

Notable SSO releases under BIS include a Rachmaninoff series, a “Seascapes” album, two Debussy discs “La Mer” and “Jeux”, and the first-ever cycle of Tcherepnin’s piano concertos and symphonies. The SSO has also collaborated with such great artists as Lorin Maazel, Charles Dutoit, Gennady

Rozhdestvensky, Neeme Järvi, Gustavo Dudamel, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Diana Damrau, Martha Argerich, Lang Lang, Yo-Yo Ma, Janine Jansen, Leonidas Kavakos and Gil Shaham.

The SSO is part of the Singapore Symphony Group, which also manages the Singapore Symphony Choruses, and the Singapore National Youth Orchestra.

The mission of the Group is to create memorable shared experiences with music. Through the SSO and its affiliated performing groups, we spread the love for music, nurture talent and enrich Singapore’s diverse communities.

Lionel Bringuier conductor French conductor Lionel Bringuier is one of the most engaging conductors of his generation, heralded for his artistic maturity and insightful programming.

He appears frequently with the world’s preeminent orchestras, and collaborates with top artists both in concert, in the opera house and on acclaimed recordings.

This season Bringuier makes appearances around the world, from New Zealand, to Singapore and the US for concert engagements, as well as a reinvitation to the Royal Swedish Opera. Bringuier will return to Korea with an engagement with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and Anne-Sophie Mutter. He also returns to the Dresden Staatskapelle to collaborate with Yuja Wang before embarking on an extensive European tour with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and renowned soloists Daniel Mueller-Schott, Arabella Steinbacher, Sol Gabetta and Jan Lisiecki with performances in Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom.

Spring 2019 sees Bringuier return to the US to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras. He

will also conduct the LA Philharmonic Orchestra, where he was selected to serve as Assistant Conductor in 2007, and was reappointed to the position under Gustavo Dudamel and promoted to Resident Conductor in 2011. He concludes the main season with visits to Oslo to conduct Ravel’s Daphnis Suite No. 2 before leading the Deutsche Symphonie Orchester in Berlin. He will also return to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the Ravinia Festival in July.

Bringuier has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Munich Philharmonic, and has conducted numerous premieres, including Rands’ Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra, Salonen’s Karawane, and the Swiss premiere of Saariaho’s “Trans” for Harp and Orchestra.

Bringuier was named “Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite” by the French government, and has been lauded “Médaille d'or à l'unanimité avec les félicitations du jury à l'Académie Prince Rainier III de Monaco” and “Médaille d'or” from the City of Nice.

Behzod Abduraimov piano Behzod Abduraimov’s performances combine an immense depth of musicality with phenomenal technique and breathtaking delicacy.

Recent seasons have included Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Münchner Philharmoniker, and prestigious conductors including Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Manfred Honeck, Lorenzo Viotti, Vasily Petrenko, James Gaffigan, Jakub Hrusa and Vladimir Jurowski.

European engagements this season include Orchestre de Paris, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester – including a tour to the Tongyeong International Music Festival – English Chamber Orchestra, and St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra.

He is also presented in recital at the Kölner Philharmonie, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and returns to the Verbier, Rheingau and La Roque d’Anthéron festivals. Abduraimov continues his collaboration with Truls Mørk following their highly successful tours last season.

Abduraimov has recently worked with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Symphony,

hr-Sinfonieorchester, BBC Scottish Symphony and Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.

In North America, he returns to both the Pittsburgh and Seattle Symphonies and gives recitals at Chicago Symphony Center, 92nd Street Y, Maestro Foundation and Vancouver Recital Series amongst others. Last season, Abduraimov returned to the Hollywood Bowl in July 2018 with a spectacular performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 under Gustavo Dudamel.

Other recent engagements have included San Francisco, Atlanta, and Houston Symphonies, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Minnesota Orchestra, and he has appeared at the Stern Auditorium Carnegie Hall in both recital and concerto performances.

Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1990, Abduraimov began to play the piano at the age of five as a pupil of Tamara Popovich at Uspensky State Central Lyceum in Tashkent. He is an alumnus of Park University’s International Center for Music where he studied with Stanislav Ioudenitch, and now serves as the ICM’s artist-in-residence.

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SSO MU S ICIAN S joshua tan Associate Conductor andrew litton Principal Guest Conductor Choo Hoey Conductor Emeritus Lan Shui Conductor Laureate Eudenice Palaruan Choral Director WONG LAI FOON Choirmaster

FIRST VIOLIN Igor Yuzefovich1 Concertmaster, The GK Goh Chair Ma Jun Yi^ Concertmaster Lynnette Seah2 Co-Concertmaster Kong Zhao Hui* Associate Concertmaster Chan Yoong-Han Fixed Chair Cao Can* Chen Da Wei Duan Yu Ling Foo Say Ming Gu Wen Li Jin Li Cindy Lee Lim Shue Churn^ Karen Tan William Tan Wei Zhe Yew Shan^ SECOND VIOLIN Timothy Peters^ Principal Michael Loh Associate Principal Hai-Won Kwok Fixed Chair

Nikolai Koval* Chikako Sasaki* Margit Saur Ikuko Schiøler^ Shao Tao Tao Wu Man Yun* Xu Jue Yi* Ye Lin* Yeo Teow Meng Yin Shu Zhan* Zhang Si Jing* Zhao Tian* VIOLA Zhang Manchin Principal Guan Qi Associate Principal Gu Bing Jie* Fixed Chair Marietta Ku Luo Biao Julia Park Shui Bing Tan Wee-Hsin Janice Tsai Wang Dandan Yang Shi Li Yeo Jan Wea^ CELLO Ng Pei-Sian Principal Yu Jing Associate Principal Guo Hao Fixed Chair Chan Wei Shing Song Woon Teng Wang Jhih-sian# Wang Yan Wang Zihao* Wu Dai Dai Zhao Yu Er DOUBLE BASS Yang Zheng Yi Associate Principal Karen Yeo Fixed Chair Olga Alexandrova Andreas Dehner^ Ma Li Ming^ Jacek Mirucki Guennadi Mouzyka Wang Xu

FLUTE Jin Ta Principal Evgueni Brokmiller Associate Principal Roberto Alvarez Miao Shanshan

Marc-Antoine Robillard Associate Principal Hoang Van Hoc

PICCOLO Roberto Alvarez Assistant Principal

TRUMPET Jon Paul Dante Principal David Smith Associate Principal Lau Wen Rong Sergey Tyuteykin

OBOE

TROMBONE

Rachel Walker Principal Pan Yun Associate Principal Carolyn Hollier Elaine Yeo

Allen Meek Principal Damian Patti Associate Principal Samuel Armstrong

COR ANGLAIS

Wang Wei Assistant Principal

Elaine Yeo Associate Principal CLARINET Ma Yue Principal Li Xin Associate Principal Liu Yoko Tang Xiao Ping

BASS TROMBONE

TUBA Brett Stemple^ TIMPANI Christian Schiøler Principal Jonathan Fox Associate Principal

BASS CLARINET

PERCUSSION

Tang Xiao Ping Assistant Principal

Jonathan Fox Principal Mark Suter Associate Principal Lim Meng Keh Tan Pei Jie^ Zhu Zheng Yi

BASSOON Wang Xiaoke Principal Liu Chang Associate Principal Christoph Wichert Zhao Ying Xue CONTRABASSOON Zhao Ying Xue Assistant Principal

HARP Gulnara Mashurova Principal Huang Yu Hsin^ PIANO

HORN

Shane Thio^

Han Chang Chou Principal Gao Jian Associate Principal Jamie Hersch Associate Principal

CELESTE Aya Sakou^

*With deep appreciation to the Rin Collection for their generous loan of string instruments.

Igor Yuzefovich plays an instrument generously loaned by Mr & Mrs G K Goh 2 Lynnette Seah performs on a J.B. Guadagnini of Milan, c. 1750, donated by the National Arts Council, Singapore, with the support of Far East Organization and Lee Foundation. # Member of the Shanghai Orchestra Academy ^Musician on temporary contract Musicians listed alphabetically by family name rotate their seats on a per programme basis.

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Thank you for attending Rachmaninov Piano Concerto 2

It's a special occasion for us as we welcome our founding Music Director, Choo Hoey, back at the SSO in our 40th anniversary year, for a programme of Stravinsky, Mozart and Bartók. You'll also get a chance to meet the Maestro in person at the post-concert autograph session.

MAESTRO CHOO HOEY ESPLANADE CONCERT HALL 18 APR 2019 Choo Hoey, conductor He Ziyu, violin

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MAURICE RAVE L (1875 –1937 ) La Valse 12’ Ravel was no stranger to dance forms in his music. Boléro, his most famous work by far, is based on a Spanish dance, and many of his early piano pieces were also based on Baroque dances. La Valse is no exception, similarly taking inspiration from the ballroom.

An earlier set of waltzes, the Valses nobles et sentimentales, used Schubert as the starting point. This grand orchestral waltz was originally conceptualised as a ballet called Vienne, and was intended as a homage to Johann Strauss II. However, there is more than a shade of Edgar Allan Poe, with its much darker overall mood, its atmosphere of uneasy sensuality, and its varied outbursts of increasing violence.

The low rumble of the opening sets the tone, and the orchestra struggles to really get going. Low strings and bassoons, coupled with violas, present the first fragments of the waltz, but the harp finally provides the impetus for the melodies to start coalescing into a theme. Following this, we get a Strauss-esque series of waltzes, contrasting loud and soft and each featuring different combinations of instruments.

The ballet character of the piece is immediately apparent: Ravel’s mastery of orchestral contrast and colour means that the audience can almost see dancers

before their eyes. Indeed, although Vienne never came to fruition, the music was irresistible to choreographers; Georges Balanchine created his own dance to it, as did the Englishman Frederick Ashton a few years later.

Sometimes sweet and sometimes sarcastic, the waltz carries on, with surprising interruptions by the brass and cymbals. Pairs of instruments, groups, and solos wander off in unexpected directions.

Ravel then reprises the whole waltz once over, but in strange harmonies and keys.

Things that are familiar become touched with something unclean, almost like Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. The music keeps up the whirling, ever faster, ever more frenziedly, and then… *** “Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished. The clouds gradually scatter: one sees at letter A an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated.

The light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the fortissimo letter B. Set in an imperial court, about 1855.” – Maurice Ravel

World Premiere 12 Dec 1920, Paris First performed by SSO 18 Jan 2013

W ITOL D L UTO SL AW SK I (1913–19 94) Concerto for Orchestra 28’ Lutoslawski was born into landed gentry, but due to the First World War and the various revolutions that followed, lost his parents to a firing squad and returned to Poland to find the family estate in ruins.

Witold thus grew up with other members of the Lutoslawski family, and studied the piano and violin from a young age, yet his route to composition had to come via a detour to mathematics at Warsaw University.

The Second World War tore Poland apart, and the immediate post-war years saw Soviet rule established as a matter of course. Lutoslawski saw his earlier compositions condemned by the cultural police, and chose to lay low for a while, composing arrangements of folksongs and children’s music, even as colleagues and friends continued to defect to the Western bloc.

It is against this background that the Concerto for Orchestra exists: an entire generation recovering from the devastation of war and genocide, yet forced to bend to a foreign power. Somehow, Lutoslawski had found a way to blend his own brand of modernism with distinctly Slavic folk flavours. The music of the Kurpie region, which he had mined for small compositions of the preceding years, was stylised and melded into a threemovement, half-hour work representing the culmination of those efforts.

PROGRAMME NOTES

Instrumentation 3 flutes, 1 doubling on piccolo 3 oboes, 1 doubling on cor anglais 2 clarinets bass clarinet 2 bassoons contrabassoon 4 horns 3 trumpets 3 trombones tuba timpani bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, triangle, tambourine, tam-tam, glockenspiel, crotales, castanets 2 harps strings

Lutoslawski borrowed Baroque forms in this piece to allow listeners a starting point. The first movement is a big triple-time overture, with a consistent ostinato drumbeat providing a menacing background to otherwise lilting dance tunes. The second movement, split into two sections, is an easily-recognisable scherzo which is contrasted with a melodic section, both of which feature colourful orchestration and folk influences.

The finale begins low in the bass, with plucked double bass and harps.

A repeating ground bass anchors orchestral arabesques above it, though the mood is ominous throughout, with brass and percussion providing terrifying punctuation to an already broken melodic line. The toccata starts with Stravinsky-like chattering, and is driven by a very strong beat that is later broken up and destabilised, with the ending chorale providing a solemn close to the monumental work.

The Concerto catapulted Lutoslawski to international prominence, earning him several state awards and the attention of other musicians in the West. However, as his compositional style shifted, he began to distance himself from his earlier folk work, preferring to look onward and upward for further inspiration in his career.

Instrumentation 3 flutes, 2 doubling on piccolos 3 oboes, 1 doubling on cor anglais 3 clarinets, 1 doubling on bass clarinet 3 bassoons, 1 doubling on contrabassoon 4 horns 4 trumpets 4 trombones tuba timpani cymbals, suspended cymbals, tambourine, glockenspiel, tam-tam, tenor drum, snare drum, bass drum, field drum, xylophone, 3 tom-toms 2 harps piano celeste strings World Premiere 26 Nov 1954, Warsaw First performed by SSO 24 & 25 Jun 1988

SERGEI RACHMANINOV (1873–194 3) Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 33’ Rachmaninov needs no introduction as one of the greatest pianists who ever lived, and his compositions will always guarantee that his reputation as a composer is never forgotten. Yet at one point in his life all might have gone to waste: his First Symphony, composed after many years of struggle, was destroyed by critics after a disastrous premiere, which included a drunk Alexander Glazunov conducting an under-rehearsed orchestra.

Instrumentation 2 flutes 2 oboes 2 clarinets 2 bassoons 4 horns 2 trumpets 3 trombones tuba timpani bass drum, cymbals strings World Premiere (complete work) 9 Nov 1901 First performed by SSO 23 & 25 Aug 1979 (Seow Yit Kin, piano)

Therapy helped Rachmaninov regain his confidence again, and the resulting C minor piano concerto firmly established the pianist-composer as one of the leading figures of the late Romantic. Its relative lack of substance has not impacted its popularity at all; Rachmaninov had found an audience-winning formula, and would stick to it for the great “Rach 3”.

major tune. These alternate for the rest of the first movement in increasingly frenetic guise, but the energy almost peters out completely before a final surge.

Piano concertos by the time of Rachmaninov had long ceased to begin with the Classical orchestral tutti, but such a slow and mysterious opening was new — let alone one not in the key of the theme!

F minor chords set up a big crescendo before the violins enter with their big tune — only one of many throughout this work. Piano filigree is immediately on display for the audience, and the glittering fingerwork cedes to a gorgeous relative-

A string chorale modulates from C minor to E major at the start of the second movement, introducing the piano with its poly-rhythmic accompaniment to the flute melody. (The soaring, irregularly-phrased wind melody would later become a firm Rachmaninov trope, as evidenced in the Second Symphony and the Symphonic Dances.) The piano does not tarry long before introducing fistfuls of notes, moving the music into darker territory and churning

the orchestra into a momentous climax.

After a piano cadenza, during which the solo piano looks over the preceding material with an improvisatory eye, the opening calmness returns.

Programme notes by Thomas Ang

Rachmaninov: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3 Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado & Lilya Zilberstein (Deutsche Grammophon, 1994)

PROGRAMME NOTES

The peace in which the second movement ends is quickly broken by the creeping movement of the orchestra as it re-enters, using fragments of melody from the first movement to prod the pianist into another cadenza. The technical wizardry on display in this final movement helps disguise the rather repetitive nature of the melodic material, and Rachmaninov deftly segues into the final big tune. A fugal section right in the middle of this movement helps stretch the opening theme a little further, and several minutes pass before the glorious final turn to C major arrives like sunlight breaking through stormy clouds.

Listen out for Rachmaninov signing his name on the final cadence: the rhythm of the orchestra sounds like “Rach-mani-nov�!

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Hans Sørensen (Head)

Ms Shirin Foo Mr Lim Yeow Siang

Ms Lillian Yin (Head)

Programmes (SSO) Ms Kua Li Leng Ms Teo Chew Yen Ms Jodie Chiang Community Outreach Ms Kathleen Tan Ms Vanessa Lee Choral Programmes Ms Regina Lee Ms Whitney Tan Programmes (VCH) Ms Erin Tan ORCHESTRA MANAGEMENT Mr Ernest Khoo (Head) Orchestra Mr Chia Jit Min Ms Tan Wei Tian Concert Operations Ms Kimberly Kwa Ms Chin Rosherna Mr Ramayah Elango Mr Md Fariz bin Samsuri Library Mr Lim Lip Hua Ms Priscilla Neo Ms Wong Yi Wen

Customer Experience Mr Randy Teo Ms Dacia Cheang Ms Nur Shafiqah bte Othman DEVELOPMENT & PARTNERSHIPS Ms Peggy Kek (Head) Corporate Communications Ms Leong Wenshan Ms Haslina Hassan Development Mr Anthony Chng Ms Chelsea Zhao Ms Nikki Chuang MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS Ms Cindy Lim (Head) Mr Chia Han-Leon Ms Myrtle Lee Ms Jana Loh Ms Hong Shu Hui Ms Sherilyn Lim Ms Melissa Tan

Finance, IT & Facilities Mr Rick Ong Mr Alan Ong Ms Goh Hoey Fen Mr Jeffrey Tang Mr Md Zailani bin Md Said Human Resources & Administration Mr Desmen Low Ms Melissa Lee Ms Evelyn Siew Legal Mr Edward Loh SINGAPORE NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA Ms Pang Siu Yuin (Head) Ms Yuen May Leng Mr Tan Yong Qing Ms Tang Ya Yun ABRSM Ms Hay Su-San (Head) Ms Patricia Yee Ms Lai Li-Yng Mr Joong Siow Chong

WWW.PIANOFESTIVAL.COM.SG

SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL PIANO FESTIVAL 30 MAY - 3 JUNE 2019 Victoria Concert Hall

SGPIANOFEST

SA CHEN RONAN OʼHORA KIRILL GERSTEIN INGRID FLITER

Supported by

Official Hotel

Patron Sponsor

Official Radio Station

Official Outdoor Media Partners

Official Airline

Sponsors

LEE FOUNDATION

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra is a charity and not-for-profit organisation. You can support us by donating at www.sso.org.sg/donate.

sso.org.sg