An Italian Romance

O NY

IN CONC

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I TA L IA N M A N N C A O E R S

22 July 2018 Sunday

Guest-of-Honour MS SIM ANN Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth

AN ITALIA N ROMAN CE Singapore National Youth Orchestra Joshua Tan, Conductor

Felix Mendelssohn

Symphony No. 4 in A major, 27’00 Op. 90 “Italian” 1. Allegro vivace 2. Andante con moto 3. Con moto moderato 4. Saltarello — Presto

Intermission

20’00

Cecil Forsyth

Viola Concerto in G minor 23’00 1. Appassionato — Moderato 2. Andante un poco sostenuto 3. Allegro con fuoco

Joelle Hsu Min, viola

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy

19’00

Non-flash photography is allowed for this concert only during curtain calls.

Use the hashtag #SNYO when you share the photos on your social media!

Concert Duration : 1hr 45 mins

Singapore National Youth Orchestra

Vision:

To inspire a lifelong love for music and a dedication to exceptional orchestral performance.

Misson:

Through the playing of orchestral classical music, we nurture future generations of musicians and build a vibrant music community for Singapore.

The Singapore National Youth Orchestra (SNYO) occupies a special place in Singapore’s music community, having produced a strong alumni contributing significantly to both seeding the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and other community orchestras in Singapore as well as teaching the next generation of budding musicians, thereby boosting Singapore’s music and cultural scene.

As a leading orchestra dedicated to the training and development of young orchestral musicians in Singapore, the SNYO is recognised by the Ministry of Education as a National Project of Excellence.

Entry into the SNYO is by a rigorous audition process.

In April 2015, the SNYO started a new chapter in its musical journey with the transfer of its management and operations from the Ministry of Education to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. The impetus behind this change is to provide high quality leadership and artistic development for local musical talent to excel at the national level by drawing on the knowledge and expertise of Singapore’s premier professional orchestra.

Currently led by Principal Conductor Joshua Tan, the SNYO is made up of over 180 talented young musicians representing more than 60 schools across Singapore.The Orchestra boasts a unique music talent development programme where selected members receive individual instrumental tutoring from professional musicians such as those from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

JOSHUA TAN CONDUCTOR Second Prize winner of the 2008 Dimitri Mitropoulos InternationalCompetition, Singaporean conductor Joshua Tan’s rise to prominencehas been marked by successful debuts in Carnegie Hall, PhilharmonieBerlin, Mariinsky Hall, Bunkamura, Shanghai, Beijing and Taiwan.

He was featured as the top Singaporean musical talent in 2009 (Lianhe Zaobao) and has won numerous awards and scholarships, including the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Award, NAC-Shell Scholarship, SSO/MOE Scholarship and the Charles Schiff ConductingPrize from The Juilliard School for outstanding achievement. In 2011, he received the Young Artist Award of Singapore.

Tan has studied with leading conductors James DePreist, Charles Dutoit, David Zinman and Kurt Masur. He has conducted the Beethoven Bonn Orchestra, National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) Orchestra, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and many more orchestras worldwide.

In opera, Tan has conducted La traviata, Tosca, Rigoletto, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Manon Lescaut, Madama Butterfly, Turandot amongst others. He was also cover conductor for Christoph Eschenbach and Lorin Maazel. Adept at working with film/multimedia, Tan is a Disney-approved conductor and gave the Asian premiere of Fantasia. He has also conducted for the BBC’s Planet Earth Series.

Tan is presently Associate Conductor of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra. He was Resident Conductor, NCPA Orchestra from 2009 to 2012 and Principal Conductor, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra from 2013 to 2017. Highlights of the 2017/18 season include Giselle in Tokyo, L’elisir d’amore, Bernstein’s Mass and a performance of the complete West Side Story with film for the centenary in Singapore amongstothers. Overseeing a special initiative, Joshua is also Director for the Asia Virtuosi since 2017, an annual festival orchestra which comprises of leading professional orchestral musicians from different orchestras in Asia. Tan is a graduate of The Juilliard School and the Eastman School of Music (High Distinction).

JOELLE HSU MIN VIOLA Although the viola is now Joelle Hsu’s first love, it was not the first musical instrument that she picked up. Hsu started her musical journey on the piano at the age of five and took up the violin at the age of eight with Sylvia Khoo. She switched to the viola only at the age of 13, when she was drawn by its deep soulful tone, and has not looked back since. Hsu enjoys the unostentatious nature of the viola and very much identifies herself with it. Hsu is now taking lessons from Zhang Manchin, Head of Viola at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music.

Hsu joined the Singapore National Youth Orchestra (SNYO) in 2013 and has served as its Principal Violist. As a member of the SNYO, she has been given many opportunities to learn from renowned musicians. She has played in a masterclass for the Canadian violist Max Mandel at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music. In 2016, she was one of the two SNYO musicians selected to attend the Toyota Youth Orchestra Camp held in Okinawa, Japan. In that same year, she was also selected to play alongside the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra.

As an orchestral member, Hsu also plays with the Orchestra of the Music Makers and The Young Musicians’ Foundation Orchestra. She continues to perform with the Joyful Strings, an ensemble which gave her the first taste of public performance at the age of eight.

Over the years, Hsu continues to develop herself both as a soloist and a chamber musician. In 2015, she was awarded the Outstanding Viola Award in the Singapore Raffles International Music Festival and in 2016, she was a member of the quartet that won the First Prize in the Singapore Performers’ Festival & Chamber Music Competition.

While the viola has become her main instrument, Hsu continues to play the violin and has served as the concertmistress in the CHIJ St. Nicholas Girl’s School String Orchestra and Victoria Junior College String Ensemble, performing in various school music events.

Hsu feels privileged to be able to share her music with all this afternoon and would like to take this opportunity to express her gratitude to her teachers who have guided her throughout her musical journey. Hsu would also like to thank her family and friends who continue to give her their unwavering support and encouragement.

SNYO Musicians

FIRST VIOLIN

VIOLA

Ethan Wong Yii (Concertmaster)

Ng Tze Yang (Principal)

Alyssa Goh Hui Yi (Co-Concertmaster)

Timothy Cher Zhi Xian Calvin Dai Siyang

Joanne Chan Wai Mun

Natalie Hee Shao Jing

Myra Rena Choo Jia En

Linnea Lei Ng Johansson

Ashley Foong Shu Yan Jalen Ng

Kristabelle Loke Shan Yuan

Soh Yi Han

Jayson Loo Jia Sheng

Sun Xiaoqing Ezekiel Tan Xin An

CELLO

-

Reina Teo Wei En

Chen Youjia (Principal)

JOSHUA TAN

Amanda Yap Wen Chin

Chloe Chen Jiaen

PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR

Nehemiah Yen Ei Shyrn

Chew Hanlin

Yeong Jun Kai

Esther Chung Xin Yue

SECOND VIOLIN

Goh Jue Shao

Ashley Hsu Shien (Principal)

Koh Xuan Wen

LIN JUAN ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR -

Joelle Chiam Yan Lin Ethan Chong Gin Leen Gwee Kang Ting

Joanne Wong Wei Yin

DOUBLE BASS

Katherine Anne Lau Enqi

Hong Jingmin (Principal)

Megan Law Zhiyi

Damien Chew

Napin Limcharoen

Chong Yee Ching

Megan Lim Pei Xuan

Margaret Louise Devadason

Alexandra Loh Wei Ling Shi Fangxin

Charis Hadjisophocleous

Monica Toh Song Fen

Javier Heng

Sarah Wong Ee Min

Mary Claire John Mark Lee Zhi Ying

FLUTE

HORN

TIMPANI

Clement Chan

Luke Chong Khi Sian+

Amos Choo Xu Ze

Gail Gay

Siti Nur Ariani Bte Norman

Irza Ahsan Pramana

Petrola Sean Lloyd Biescas

Clive Tan Jing Jie

Muhammad Aidil Syukri Roslan

PERCUSSION

Natasha Lee Yu Xian Julien Quek Jun Hao

PICCOLO

Jaben Sim Yun Heng

Janelle Yuen Feng Min

Linnet Sim Yun Juan

OBOE Jasper Goh Jing Zhong

TRUMPET

Foong Jun Yu

Carissa Ho Min-Yi

Amy Zhou Xinru

Shi Ruixin

Quek Jun Rui

CLARINET Samuel Chan Jin Mei Xuan Callista Neo Tian Mengxi

BASSOON Jove Fong Yi Liang Rachel Ng Wei Ting Shi Jiaao

Kevin Tan Han Ming

HARP

Amir Hasif Bin Rosli

Jasper Goh Jing Zhong

Clive Tan Jing Jie

Himari Ang Lixin

Quek Jun Rui

COR ANGLAIS

Chloe Lim Miranda

Abner Wong Ho Khuen

TROMBONE Reema Chatterjee Toh Chang Hui

BASS TROMBONE Syed Mirza Bin Syed Mohamed Alkhairid

TUBA Sim Kai Jun Jordon Tan Jing Han

Schools, Colleges and Institutions represented in SNYO

Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School

Nanyang Junior College

Anderson Junior College

Nanyang Primary School

Ang Mo Kio Secondary School

Nanyang Technological University

Anglican High School

National University of Singapore

Anglo-Chinese Junior College

Ngee Ann Primary School

Anglo-Chinese School (Barker Road)

Ngee Ann Secondary School

Anglo-Chinese School (Independent)

NUS High School of Mathematics and Science

Anglo-Chinese School (Junior)

Paya Lebar Methodist Girls’ School (Primary)

Anglo-Chinese School (Primary)

Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary)

Balestier Hill Primary School

Raffles Institution

Canberra Primary School

River Valley High School

Catholic High School

School of the Arts, Singapore

Catholic Junior College

Singapore American School

CHIJ (Katong) Primary

Singapore Chinese Girls’ School

CHIJ (Kellock)

Singapore Polytechnic

CHIJ St. Joseph’s Convent

St. Gabriel’s Secondary School

CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls’ School (Secondary)

St. Hilda’s Primary School

Chung Cheng High School (Main)

St. Joseph’s Institution

Crescent Girls’ School

St. Joseph’s Institution International

Dunman High School

St. Patrick’s School

Evergreen Secondary School

St. Stephen’s School

Fairfield Methodist School (Secondary)

Tanjong Katong Girls’ School

Fuchun Primary School

Tanjong Katong Secondary School

German European School Singapore

Tao Nan School

Geylang Methodist School (Secondary)

Temasek Junior College

Henry Park Primary School

Temasek Primary School

Hwa Chong Institution

United World College of South East Asia

Jurong Secondary School

Victoria Junior College

Kong Hwa School

Victoria School

Lakeside Primary School

Whitley Secondary School

Maris Stella High School

Yishun Junior College

Meridian Junior College

Yishun Primary School

Methodist Girls’ School (Primary)

Yishun Secondary School

Methodist Girls’ School (Secondary)

Yu Neng Primary School

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Nanyang Girls’ High School

Acknowledgements

SNYO COMMITTEE Ms Liew Wei Li (Chairlady) Mr Ang Chek Meng Ms Vivien Goh Dr Kee Kirk Chin Mrs Valarie Wilson WITH SUPPORT FROM MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, ARTS EDUCATION BRANCH Mrs Valarie Wilson Director, Arts Education Mrs Lillian Chen Deputy Director, Music & Drama Mr Hoo Cher Liek Senior Specialist, Music THE SINGAPORE NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA WISHES TO THANK Ms Sim Ann for gracing the SNYO concert as Guest-of-Honour National Arts Council Temasek Foundation Nurtures Tan Chin Tuan Foundation Ms Wang Siao Hua for the donation of her double bass to the SNYO Tutors of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra Parents of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra members Principals of the participating schools

Felix Mendelssohn Born 3 February 1809 (Hamburg, Germany) Died 4 November 1847 (Leipzig, Germany)

INSTRUMENTATION 2 Flutes 2 Oboes 2 Clarinets 2 Bassoons

2 Horns Timpani Strings

ABOUT THE COMPOSER Born to an eminent family, Felix Mendelssohn was the son of a noteworthy banker and grandson of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), the great Enlightenment philosopher whose work for the Berlin Academy triumphed over that of the esteemed Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804) in a philosophy contest in 1763.

Brother to Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847), an extraordinary and prolific female composer of some 460 pieces, Felix was, like her, uncommonly gifted and profoundly musical.

As a child, Mendelssohn once improvised on family friend, German author and philosopher Johann von Goethe’s (1749-1832) piano; producing on sight a polyphonic and contrapuntal fantasia that astounded members of the audience present. Described by one present as a “turbulent, lustrous parliament of tones”, Goethe, a mentor, was said also to have observed that “what this little one can do in extemporising and playing at sight borders on the miraculous”.

A pianist, organist, conductor, and one of the Romantic era’s greatest of all composers, Mendelssohn was also single-handedly responsible for our knowledge the great Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) today; inspiring a mass and widespread Bach revival in the Romantic era with an 1829 performance of Bach’s magisterial St. Matthew’s Passion when Bach’s work was all-but-forgotten.

Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, “Italian”

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WORK Premiered in 1833 by the same society that commissioned Beethoven’s magnificent Ninth Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic Society, Mendelssohn’s “Italian” or Fourth Symphony was inspired by an influential year-long sojourn that he spent in Italy.

A sweepingly panoramic journey, Mendelssohn visited Italian cities, villages, and countryside from Venice to Florence, Naples, Rome, Genoa, Milan, and Bologna and many others on a cultural rite of passage many know as the Grand Tour – a cultural phenomenon beginning in the 16th century when educated and newly-fledged members of European society travelled to the heart and cradle of the Roman empire and the Italian Renaissance to experience, at first hand, the art, culture, language, and visible wonders of European civilisation or the early and incipient beginnings of architecture, monument, and literature of the known and European world.

Said to have caused Mendelssohn some of the “bitterest” moments of his compositional career, the music was subject to multiple revisions over the course of his life and long after its premiere. Inspired also by Goethe’s moving account of his Grand Tour in Italian Journey (1816-1817), Mendelssohn’s Italian symphony is the musical equivalent of a sweeping artistic panorama that captures the country in its variegated entirety; from its moments of sunshine and light to the dark and dappled cinder-block colours of its early Renaissance and Romanesque architecture.

Captured in music is the nature and languid light of Italian sunshine as well as the rich and evocative bleakness of the art of the Italian artistic grand masters like Caravaggio, da Vinci, and the grand buildings and shrines from the early Renaissance. All of Italy, a haven of artistic, architectural, and natural wonders has here been symphonically evoked in moments of musical light and darkness, and in his capturing of city and country, rural and urban, art and nature, and in all of Italy’s sunlight, joy, idyll, and majesty.

Cecil Forsyth Born 30 November 1870 (Greenwich, United Kingdom) Died 7 December 1914 (New York, The United States of America)

INSTRUMENTATION 2 Flutes Oboe Cor Anglais 2 Clarinets 2 Bassoons 4 Horns

2 Trumpets 3 Trombones Tuba Timpani Cymbals Strings

ABOUT THE COMPOSER Educated at the University of Edinburgh and later at the Royal College of Music, Cecil Forsyth received a musical education from two of England’s greatest Romantic composers, Sirs Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) and Hubert Parry (1848-1918).

A composer, violist, scholar, and prolific musicologist, Cecil Forsyth was also the author of several noteworthy musical and theoretical texts. Perhaps best known for the witty, capaciously informative, and immensely insightful landmark work Orchestration (1914, reprinted 1935), he also wrote A History of Music (1916, with his teacher, the eminent Charles Stanford), a text on English Opera, Music, and Nationalism (1911), Choral Orchestration (1920), and A Digest of Music History (1923).

Forsyth also composed other innovative mixed genre works like the ballad-cantata The Ode to a Nightingale (1894) and the choral ballad, The Luck of Eden Hall (1922), as well as some more conventional ones, like early songs, settings for unaccompanied choirs, the British comic operas Westward Ho! and Cinderella, and a humoured take on The Old King Cole (1912).

Viola Concerto in G minor

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WORK Premiered in 1903 at a London Promenade concert by the great Belgian violist Émile Férir for whom the work was conceived (the score is dedicated ‘à son ami Férir’), the early 20th-century work received instant critical and public acclaim.

Drawing on the viola’s rich, burnished and achingly mellifluous timbres (its lowest note is C below middle C, five notes lower than the violin’s) and composed by a violist, the work is filled with deeply moving passages perfectly suited to the viola’s natural contralto singing range, as well as exquisitely crafted and idiomatically captivating, virtuosic yet lyrical viola writing perfectly suited for the violist’s hand.

With dazzling solo writing for an instrument more frequently reserved for inner harmonies or deeper musical lines, it is filled also with lush, magnificent and finely orchestrated dramatic orchestral tuttis evincing great late-Romantic and early 20th-century British lyricism.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky Born 7 May 1840 (Votkinsk, Russian Empire) Died 6 November 1893 (Saint Petersburg, Russia)

INSTRUMENTATION Piccolo 2 Flutes 2 Oboes Cor Anglais 2 Clarinets 2 Bassoons 4 Horns 2 Trumpets

2 Trombones Bass Trombone (or Tuba) 3 Timpani Cymbals Bass Drum Harp Strings

ABOUT THE COMPOSER One of Russia’s greatest Romantic composers, well-known for exquisite musical gifts that saw too many impossibly beautiful melodies and tunes, Tchaikovsky was the son of a Russian lieutenant colonel and military engineer as well as a mother of French-Russian parentage.

Perhaps as a consequence, Tchaikovsky’s music also effectively bridged Russian and central or continental musical sensibilities in a prismatic meeting of the European East, Central, and West.

A precocious child, the young Tchaikovsky became effectively trilingual in French, German, and Russian by the age of six, after just two years of study with the family governess. He received piano lessons at the age of five — he was said to have become as skilled as his piano teacher at reading sheet music, by the age of eight.

Although musically gifted, Tchaikovsky first served as a civil servant by profession; only later entering the newly-formed Saint Petersburg Conservatory to train in music.

His phenomenal talent became readily evident and Tchaikovsky quickly rose the ranks to become a professor of music at the Moscow Conservatory.

Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WORK In effect a symphonic poem, meaning a piece of orchestral music with programmatic elements telling of a scene or the narrative of a story, Tchaikovsky called his Romeo and Juliet, however, an “overture-fantasy”.

It suggests that he understood how the work contained both innovative and hybrid elements that evoked the curtain-raising overture, and also the ‘fantasy’-like and patchwork quality of quilted (and often operatic) melodies that fill this work.

Composed of just three essential melodic strands, the sombre and Russian Orthodox-like ‘Friar Lawrence' or ecclesiastical theme, the dramatic clash and conflict of the ‘strife’ theme, (said to embody the Montagues and Capulets), and the ‘Romance’ or ‘love’ theme, (said to represent the ‘star-crossed’ Romeo and Juliet), the music is in abridged sonata-allegro form, richly orchestrated, and sumptuously melodic; full of long-spun, indelibly memorable musical, and soaring melodic motifs for which Tchaikovsky was greatly beloved.

One of Tchaikovsky’s earliest masterworks – written when he was only 29 – it was inspired and instigated, in no small part, by Mily Balakirev (1837-1910), one of the founding fathers of ‘The Mighty Handful’, a circle of five noteworthy Russian composers who wrote and championed Russian and nationalistic compositions; himself a personal friend and mentor to Tchaikovsky.

As a musical setting of the eponymous Shakespearean 1597 play, Romeo and Juliet (1869) is, unusually, one of several musical instantiations of the subject that captured the compositional imagination from the Romantic era right up through to early 20th-century, including Prokofiev’s magisterial ballet Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64 (1938) as well as Leonard Bernstein’s modern treatment of the subject matter in West Side Story (1961).

Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, “Italian”

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MOVEMENT I : ALLEGRO VIVACE

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Joyful, exuberant, and marked with buoyantly ebullient moments of light as well as that of dark and dappled shadow,

5B

5A

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A jaunty A major pizzicato chord plucked by the strings, set against a piping semiquaver backdrop in the flutes, clarinets, bassoons, and horns, heralds the beginning, joyfully setting the musical scene.

The first violins enter with a sunny and glorious rising first subject against the flutter of woodwinds. Exuberant and lilting, with dotted rhythms and in compound time, it features an ebullient and joyously soaring melody, as one sets off anticipant on this Italian sojourn.

The theme repeats and grows in intensity; building towards a thunderous and joyous climax and reiteration of the main theme.

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5A

5B

Transition – An alternating dialogic and antiphonal quaver-motif sequential exchange appears against the fanfare-like sound of clarion trumpets.

A chromatically falling six-note quaver staccato motif in the violins marks the beginning of the second subject.

Listen for the gentle warbling of clarinets and bassoons which pipe a lyrical, and pastoral-esque melody. The music continues to develop as the orchestra takes over these new lyrical and singing melodies; a moment which brings the exposition to a dramatic climax and rousing close.

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the first movement epitomises the sweeping variegation with which Mendelssohn has musically represented the cities,

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villages, art, and beauty of Italy in all her panoramic glory.

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Development – The falling and scalic second subject (5A) marks the start of the richly evocative and exploratory development in which fragments of the original melodic material are varied upon and then developed through different keys.

The second violins enter with a rich and deeply moving new melody – an innovation to the sonata-allegro form – now strikingly in D minor. The tune develops into a densely contrapuntal section; an extraordinarily fine example of how the principles of Baroque polyphony may operate as part of musical development within a Romantic symphony. The music is gloriously antiphonal, gilded by trumpet clarion, and builds to a climax.

The music slows to a more stately pace, and then builds up in tempo yet again as it passes through keys in the circle of fifths; developing material as the music runs through a range of new keys.

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Oboes play snatches of the opening theme, and almost by surprise, comes the recapitulation – the violins return to the opening theme and first subject.

The new melody first heard in the development, is heard this time in the recapitulation; bringing yet another musical surprise.

The rising trumpets, like the heralding of angels, seems to signpost or herald the end.

A walking pizzicato bass line appears as a counter-melody.

The music builds and then races to an exuberant finale.

Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, “Italian�

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MOVEMENT II: ANDANTE CON MOTO

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Said to be inspired by a religious procession in Naples, the music, (and first subject in particular), is accurately Italian

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An orchestral tutti heralds the beginning of this movement.

Of sombre mood and spirit, the plangent and stately melody is first heard in the viola, oboe, and bassoon. The noteworthy walking-bass accompaniment in the lower strings endues the music with a processional quality.

More and more instruments join in the statement of the opening theme, this time with the introduction of counter melodies that surface in the flutes. A rousingly evocative polyphonic section ensues.

Transition – Diminished and chromatic harmonies of strong Italian quality in the violins lead to a descending and enquiring passage.

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A sudden shower of light appears in the form of a stunning contrastive turn to the major key and with the emergence of clarinet and horns for the first time.

The music rapidly returns to the opening theme with the reprise and re-emergence of the stately and mysteriously shadowy walking bass.

Contrapuntal section with woodwinds and strings in contrasting harmonic antiphony.

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and strikingly reminiscent of shapes and contours of the ancient and antique Italian and Baroque works that

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Ottorino Respighi’s fieldwork uncovered, recorded, and featured in his Ancient Airs and Dances, based on his

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study of Italian music of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

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The second subject emerges again in a moment of sunny and languid musical glory.

Coda – Snatches of the first theme are restated and the music comes to a close.

Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, “Italian”

MOVEMENT III: CON MOTO MODERATO

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Taking the form of a stately, graceful, dance-like, and classically-styled minuet and trio, rather than a more

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Theme A1 – The violins sing a gentle and quiet minuet theme.

Graceful and dance-like, it is set against bustling and arpeggiac second violin and viola accompaniment and a singing counter-melody in the lower strings. The woodwinds round off the sounding of the first section.

Theme A2 – Violins continue with an elaboration of the opening minuet theme which soon transitions into a moment of exploratory darkness. In the key of B-minor, the music is set against the plangent and aching piping of oboes.

Theme A1 is heard again. The music moves back to the major tonality with which it began, and to the warm lyricism and velvety richness of clarinets, this time, as the minuet moves into a rousing close.

playful and boisterous scherzo, the music grows increasingly Romantic in the contrastive trio or programmatically ‘hunt’-like

section, to which the minuet returns at the end.

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Trio – Horns introduce a stately hunt-like theme adverting of open fields and Italian rural idyll against lilting and rising strings.

A clearly programmatic element to the music here appears.

Minuet – The lower strings rustle a rousing rendition of the opening theme which returns in rich, dark, and almost Beethovenian registers in the lower strings.

The minuet sequence repeats, but with richer use of woodwind embellishment.

Coda – A fanfare-like theme is heralded by the horns in conjunction with the trumpets this time, and against the same rising string motif as the music comes to a quiet and lyrical close in the strings.

Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, “Italian”

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MOVEMENT IV: SALTARELLO – PRESTO

Mendelssohn here features two rapid Italian folk-dance – the brisk and carnivalesque Saltarello and swift Tarantella

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Opening explosively with a five-note motif in the strings and brass set against tremulous trills in the woodwinds, the finale begins with an exciting triplet figuration that masquerades as a sequence of an upbeat, rest, and five semiquavers in A minor. The repetitions or ostinatos endue the music with a percussive and rhythmic effect, which gives it a carnivalesque atmosphere. Called a saltarello, a fast Italian folk-dance in triple metre with jumping effect (the word is derived from ‘saltare’ which means to jump), the music continues to build to a climactic orchestral apex,

and thunderous re-expression of the opening subject in strings and woodwinds. Of strong homophonic quality, it leads to a transitional sequence of calmer quality.

The second subject is introduced; similar to the opening theme but in the dominant key, it is accompanied by the woodwinds.

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Development ensures, with melodic fragments in the woodwinds this time accompanied by the strings.

A new melody emerges, the Tarantella, whirling like a dervish.

Minor keys and contrapuntal treatment of this theme continue against newly infolded Saltarello rhythms.

Circle of fifths feature as the music passes through E major, A major, D major, and G major and with the tarantella theme coming to the fore, variously in turn, and through members of the orchestra.

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respectively – which are contrasted and combined into a frenetic and gloriously spirited finale.

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The saltarello theme is heard in the violins although the music continues to develop, catching the listener by surprise.

The orchestra bellows in full force, as the saltarello rhythm eventually returns, building to an urgent downwards scalic finish and a blazing finale.

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Viola Concerto in G minor

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MOVEMENT I: APPASSIONATO — MODERATO

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A burst of full orchestral sound sets the scene, with a crash of percussion above a peal of brass. In the tonic key of G minor, the orchestral tutti heralds the soloist’s entry. The impassioned solo viola enters with blistering virtuosity.

Moderato: Over hushed pianissimo tremolos in the violins and violas, the solo viola plays a haunting, searching first subject.

Con moto agitato: The orchestra suddenly enters with a bridgelike passage filled with growing excitement. A rising, scalic phrase marked by quaver triplets and medial accents appear in the strings and woodwinds, soon ascending into the high registers.

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Allegro con spirito: The solo violist enters with a new theme.

Also featuring rising triplets, this time conveying a heroic subject filled with a sense of action. This ‘adventure’ theme is heard over plucked strings and rustling woodwinds. Later, the same theme is echoed by and heard in the woodwinds, and then soars on the strings.

Sudden falling passages in the woodwinds and strings in staccato lead to new melodic material in the solo viola – a repeated-note motif with introspective character.

The melody soon turns into a dialogue against a lush orchestral score, with trilling flutes and singing oboes.

The solo viola transitions back into the opening ‘adventure’-like theme. The theme escalates, marked by growing dynamism and simmering virtuosity.

The violist performs a series of double-stopped thirds and then climbs a series of breath-taking octaves.

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The solost’s cadenza: hearkening back to the artistry of the great mid-Romantic violin concerti of Paganini, Sphor and Vieuxtemps, the soloist plays dramatic sequences with sequential double-stops in thirds, sixths, and rising octaves; quadruple stops, high registers, and four-string arpeggiac crossings.

Idiomatically suited to viola technique, this is viola-writing at its finest and most intelligent.

Allegro: Against a dramatic and evocative rustling of alternating upper strings in tremolo, reminiscent of Ride of the Valkyries, the viola solo returns with the first ‘adventure’ theme.

Orchestra re-enters with the first theme, with melody in the flutes and upper strings, building to a thunderous climax.

A Tempo: The viola solo reprises the second subject. String tremolos play a light and leggiero passage in dialogue with the flutes and a counter-subject in the cellos as the soloist soars into treble registers. The rest of the orchestra echoes with this same theme.

10 The orchestra enters with a triumphant climax, marked by clarion bursts of sound in the trumpets and the rolling grandeur of the timpani. The music is brought to a rousing, joyous end.

Viola Concerto in G minor

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MOVEMENT II: ANDANTE UN POCO SOSTENUTO

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Andante un poco sostenuto: Solemn with a martial and almost processional quality, the music opens with the siren call of double-dotted, fanfare-like trumpets and the grave rolling of drums. The woodwinds, brass and percussion come to the fore, the strings remaining mostly silent. Observe how the plangent bleating of oboe, cor anglais, and bassoon escalates to a dramatic trumpet call.

The viola solo enters with a melody; stately and heart-felt, in triple time and in D major. Played against just the violins in a hushed and quiet concertante-like section, the divisi violins are muted and play con sordino, in a reverential and hymn-like section. The viola plays at the highest and most stirringly riveting reaches of the instrument.

Con moto: The solo viola transitions into a second subject, featuring a dotted and rising elegiac sequence in E minor (here called the “Romance” theme) against a moving counter-melody in the strings in a strong British Romantic, Edwardian quality.

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Con moto feroce: We are suddenly plunged into a highly dramatic, tempest-tossed section marked by szforzando and tremolo strings with a dash of woodwinds. Against this backdrop, the solo viola enters with another lyrical subject, which then builds to a sustained sempre piu appassionato sequence.

The viola solo’s melody grows increasingly impassioned.

Tempo I: Soaring orchestral interlude marked by full surging strings and rising ascents.

The solo viola re-enters with new melodic material and a reprise of the “Romance” theme; first against increasingly softened orchestral strings, and then again in a hushed passage.

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7 The oboe enters with a pleading and haunting melody, heard against the glistening sheen of flutes, upper woodwinds, and the rest of the orchestra. The music gradually slows to a halt (poco ritardano al fine) and then fades to a close.

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Viola Concerto in G minor

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MOVEMENT III: ALLEGRO CON FUOCO

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Allegro con fuoco: Violins enter with a dramatic passage soon joined by the rest of the orchestra.

A running and bravura sequence with great energy and verve, it grows to an immense dramatic apex against the crash of cymbals and brass.

The solo viola enters against a backdrop of hushed and tremolo strings, bearing a rising four-note motif in double-dotted rhythms.

Heroic and filled with adventure, the melody hearkens back to the opening theme in the concerto.

The inner voices (violin II and violas) accompany the soloist.

The strings bring in a new triplet motif as the viola solo develops another theme, with similar double-dotted rhythms.

The orchestra is uncommonly light – Forsyth twice reiterates how delicately it is to be played – citing both the Italian ‘leggiero’ and English ‘very lightly’ in piano.

The viola increasingly becomes the centre of this musical world, as the orchestra takes a silent backseat.

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A whirling orchestra interlude, with rapidly surging strings.

Trumpets enter against an urgent stream of strings, like vortices of swirling sound. The music grows into a towering climax with the clash of trumpets, drums, and cymbals.

Strings sing the serenade-like second subject. The solo viola soon enters with the same melody, warbling notes of rich lyricism against counter-subjects heard in the flutes and clarinets.

The solo viola transitions into the earlier impassioned double stops in dotted rhythms against a cadential close heralded by strings and woodwinds.

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Horns bring back the first ‘adventure’ theme, with the solo viola developing upon it.

A new “English” subject enters in the flutes. It evokes an especially British sound, clustered around the first and fifth degree of the scale, which gives it a particularly pentatonic, folk-like quality. The viola solo then reprises the lyric second subject, the wistful and rising four-note motif, which builds into a compelling climax.

The music takes a sudden and surprising turn. The viola solo extemporises even more greatly upon running and double-stopped passages, and the music races to a triumphant and spirited finish.

Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy 1

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Introduction - Friar Lawrence or Ecclesiastical Theme. The equivalent of the Prologue which begins Shakespeare’s play, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet.

Clarinets and bassoons hum the dark, and plaintive theme, an F-sharp minor hymn-like melody possessing a strong modal quality reminiscent of the Russian Orthodox church. Solemn and serious, it is plangent and unsettling.

Strings enter with the melody, developing it, followed by the flutes and clarinets against a cello counter-point. The music moves enharmonically into a major key (E major) and then rapidly modulates back to a minor one (F-sharp minor), plunging it back into darkness and bleakness. A rumble of pizzicato in both upper and lower strings brings the music to:

The upper woodwind restatement of the theme in counterpoint with the pizzicato strings; a flutter of sound. Strings take over the melodic material as the music grows richer and denser; reprising the movement from E major to F-sharp minor.

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Harp arpeggios: the first of several innovative ways in which Tchaikovsky signposts impending dramatic action.

Musical tension continues to mount, heightened by rolling timpani. The music gains in drama, escalating to tremolo strings, roaring basses, a peal of wood winds, rolling of timpani, and in a transitional section in which horns, flutes, woodwinds, percussion, and brass increasingly feature.

7 Exposition – First Subject – Strife Theme. The statement of the dramatic first subject and the beginning of the Exposition in the form of the ‘strife’ theme. Said to represent the clash and conflict between the warring Montagues and Capulets, the grand entrance of this dotted, powerful theme is forceful and impassioned. The dramatic escalation is taken to its limit in the form of rising scales in the strings, set against the bright clash of cymbals.

8 A contrastingly hushed sequence where flutes and horns come to the fore. The music grows exceeding still, like an eye of calm before a storm. The musical stage is plunged into exquisite stillness.

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6 A moment of momentary calm, and then the music suddenly breaks forth into:

9 Exposition – Second Subject - Love Theme.

The violas and cor anglais begin a sweet, sumptuously heart-felt melody, singing the ‘Love’ or ‘Romance’ theme. Blushing and lyrical, it is almost impossibly long-spun, of an exceeding melodious quality. Pure and true, representing the love between Romeo and Juliet, the music is now in an unexpected D-flat major (rather than the expected D major). The second part of the second subject, an undulating motif heard in quiet string division, almost like the rocking of a cradle. Flutes and oboes take over; this time sounding the love theme against strings, carried by an ardent, undulating horn call.

Look out for the harp glissando which signposts a shift of scene.

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Development : Fragments of the strife theme opens the start of the development. The strings pass through a plethora of keys, principally the cycle of fifths, into a range of musical territories, against counter-melodies in the woodwinds and cellos.

An tragic trumpet call heralds a moment of high drama. Now resolutely homophonic, the music is strident and filled with the sound of conflict and war.

The recapitulation begins, unusually, with the entrance of the love theme, this time played by the woodwinds under running string passages, then strings singing with a fluttering triplet accompaniment in the woodwinds and a horn counter-melody, against a backdrop of soaring brass.

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Cellos enter, and the music grows in ever increasingly sustained tension.

A sudden and shocking appearance of the ‘strife’ theme breaks the romantic atmosphere.

The music begins to move from joy to grief.

Coda : Funereal timpani rhythms sound in the wake of the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. The love theme is transformed into a dirge, treading sorrowfully on the bassoon and strings. Woodwind choir hum, in a sombre mood, a message of consolation.

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The harp reintroduces the love theme, distressingly resurrected by the strings with increasing dissonance. The souls of the star-crossed lovers depart wearily, in chilling finality, their peace found in death.

A fanfare of trumpets, horns, and rolling timpani brings the overture-fantasy to a definitive close.

Programme notes by Duana Chan

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SNYO Goes On Tour PRE-TOUR CONCERT 6 December 2018, 7.30pm Esplanade Concert Hall Peter Stark conductor Pacho Flores trumpet Lee Jia Yi Commissioned Work Arutiunian Trumpet Concerto

GUANGZHOU

Elgar Enigma Variations

23 December 2018, 4pm Xinghai Concert Hall, Guangzhou Joshua Tan conductor Pacho Flores trumpet

HONG KONG

26 December 2018, 7.45pm Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall Joshua Tan conductor Pacho Flores trumpet

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