Gil Shaham • Brahms Symphonies

LAN SHUI MUSIC DIRECTOR

SUBSCRIPTION CONCERT

GIL SHAHAM • BRAHMS SYMPHONIES 7 July 2017 Esplanade Concert Hall Performing Home of the SSO

Lan Shui, conductor Gil Shaham, violin

7 Jul 2017, Fri

GIL SHAHAM • BRAHMS SYMPHONIES Singapore Symphony Orchestra Lan Shui, conductor

TAN CHAN BOON

Soir, Rêves, Fantaisie from Symphony No. 2 “Genèse” 12’00

SERGEI PROKOFIEV

Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19 22’00

1. Andantino 2. Scherzo: Vivacissimo 3. Moderato

Gil Shaham, violin

Intermission 20’00 JOHANNES BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 45’00

1. Un poco sostenuto — Allegro 2. Andante sostenuto 3. Un poco allegretto e grazioso 4. Adagio — Più andante — Allegro non troppo ma con brio — Più allegro

Concert duration: 1 hr 55 mins POST-CONCERT SYMPHONY CHAT Esplanade Concert Hall, Stalls Level

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S ING A P OR E S Y MP HON Y OR C HE S T R A ‘A fine display of orchestral bravado for the SSO and Shui’ The Guardian

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 alltime 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.

Since Lan Shui assumed the position of Music Director in 1997, 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 Rachmaninov series, a Debussy disc, “Seascapes” featuring sea-themed music by Debussy, Frank Bridge, Glazunov and Zhou Long, 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, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Lang Lang, Yo-Yo Ma, Leonidas Kavakos and Gil Shaham.

L A N SHUI conductor

Lan Shui is renowned for his abilities as an orchestral builder and for his passion in commissioning, premiering and recording new works by leading Asian composers. As Music Director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra since 1997, American Record Review noted that Shui has “turned a good regional orchestra into a world-class ensemble that plays its heart out at every concert”. Together they have made several acclaimed tours to Europe, Asia and the United States and appeared for the first time at the BBC Proms in September 2014.

Lan Shui held the position of Chief Conductor of the Copenhagen Phil from 2007 to 2015, and from 2016 he became their Conductor Laureate. He recently concluded a four-year period as Artistic Advisor of the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra. As a guest conductor, Shui has worked with many orchestras. In the United States he has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Baltimore and Detroit symphony orchestras. In Europe he has performed with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Gothenburg Symphony, Tampere Philharmonic and Orchestre National de Lille. In Asia he has conducted the Hong Kong, Malaysian and Japan Philharmonic orchestras and maintains a close relationship with the China Philharmonic and Shanghai Symphony.

Since 1998 Shui has recorded over 20 CDs for BIS – including a Rachmaninov series, a “Seascapes” disc and the first-ever complete cycle of Tcherepnin’s symphonies with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra – and also music by Arnold and Hindemith with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, which has received two Grammy nominations.

Lan Shui is the recipient of several international awards from the Beijing Arts Festival and the New York Tcherepnin Society, the 37th Besançon Conductors’ Competition in France and Boston University (Distinguished Alumni Award) as well as the Cultural Medallion – Singapore’s highest accolade in the arts. Born in Hangzhou, China, Shui studied composition at the Shanghai Conservatory and graduated from The Beijing Central Conservatory. He continued his graduate studies at Boston University while at the same time working closely with Leonard Bernstein at the Tanglewood Music Festival. He has worked together with David Zinman as Conducting Affiliate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, as Associate Conductor to Neeme Järvi at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and with Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic and Pierre Boulez at The Cleveland Orchestra.

G IL SH A H A M violin

Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time; his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. Highlights of recent seasons include performances with the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, New World Symphony, Singapore Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, residencies with the Montreal Symphony and Carolina Performing Arts, and on an extensive North American tour with The Knights, to celebrate the release of Violin Concertos of the 1930s, Vol. 2. Shaham has also toured Bach’s complete unaccompanied sonatas and partitas to London’s Wigmore Hall and key North American venues in a special multimedia collaboration with photographer/video artist David Michalek.

Shaham already has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, including bestsellers that have ascended the charts in the U.S. and abroad. These recordings have earned multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. His recent recordings are issued by his own Canary Classics label, which he founded in 2004, and include J.S. Bach: Sonatas & Partitas for Violin; Nigunim: Hebrew Melodies; Sarasate: Virtuoso Violin Works; Elgar’s Violin Concerto with the Chicago Symphony; and Bach’s complete works for solo violin. A passionate advocate for new music, Shaham has also premiered works by composers including William Bolcom, David Bruce, Avner Dorman, Julian Milone and Bright Sheng.

Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, and in 2008 he received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. He plays the 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius, and lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children. www.gilshaham.com www.facebook.com/gilshaham twitter.com/gilshaham

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*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 ^Musician on temporary contract Musicians listed alphabetically by family name rotate their seats on a per programme basis.

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14 July 2017

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CHOPIN PIANO CONCERTO 2 • POEM OF ECSTASY FROM ENCHANTMENT TO ECSTASY R. Yardumian Armenian Suite Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21 A. Liadov The Enchanted Lake, Op. 62 Scriabin The Poem of Ecstasy, Op. 54 Lan Shui, conductor Charles Richard-Hamelin, piano “An artist firmly on a unique and original path” – The Globe and Mail PRE-CONCERT TALK 6.30pm | library@esplanade

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TA N C H A N B OON (b. 196 5) Soir, Rêves, Fantaisie from Symphony No. 2 “Genèse”

12’00

Soir, Rêves, Fantaisie is the second movement of Tan Chan Boon’s Symphony No. 2 “Genèse” in F-sharp minor. This is the second of five symphonies the composer has written to date. This symphony was inspired partly by the first book of the Bible, Genesis, hence its title.

While it does not portray any specific episode or story in Genesis, it aims to convey a sense of the act and power of Creation – which became so profoundly salient to the composer during a hiking trip to the Swiss Alps.

“I saw the infinite wave upon wave of mountain tops, intermingling with blue skies and white clouds. It was awesome.”

The emotions are conveyed in a series of motifs that are introduced and transformed throughout the symphony. The idea of Creation – of moving from darkness to light, from nothingness to being – is also reflected in the choice of keys.

The key structure of the symphony is: First movement: F-sharp minor – E major, Second movement: G minor – F minor, Third movement: F minor – F-sharp minor/F-sharp major – G major. The shifting of the tonal center in the first two movements reflects a form of ‘descent’ into darkness. This is transformed in the finale with the progression of F-sharp minor to G major – ‘G’ for Genesis and God – which reflects an ascent to triumph and resolution.

Soir, Rêves, Fantaisie was written in about a week in September 1995, six years after the completion of the first movement. In compound ternary form (A B A B A C), this movement consists of three themes: Soir (Evening), Rêves (Dream) and Fantaisie (Fantasy).

Conceived as an Intermezzo between the gigantic first and third movements, it is much more introspective in mood. As evening falls and darkness descends, disturbing dreams engulf the consciousness. It is a depiction of personal struggle and anguish. However, light finally shines through the gloom with the statement of the Fantaisie theme, which is more positive in character.

The first Soir theme is executed by a solo horn amidst a contrapuntal backdrop. The cello introduces the Rêves theme and the mountain theme first heard in the first movement of the Symphony brings the music to the next Soir theme. This structure is then repeated and the last Soir theme leads to the first appearance of the bright Fantaisie theme also known as the ‘5-6-5’ motif in a major key played by the higher woodwinds. It has a blossoming effect which transfigures the atmosphere of the music, evoking the feeling of looking heavenwards.

Next, the violins play the mountain theme, which subsequently leads to a tutti climax – the only two bars where the trumpets, trombones and tuba enter in this movement. After the two-bar climax, the ‘5-6-5’ motif turns into the ‘angel’ motif which is a three-part imitative counterpoint from the woodwinds. This is repeated three times, with the order of instruments changing each time. The ‘5-6-5’ motif concludes the movement in a minor key compared to its initial appearance in major key. The double bass ties the music into the Finale.

Programme note by Tan Chan Boon

S ERGEI P ROKOF IEV (189 1 - 1 9 5 3 ) Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19 22’00 Prokofiev wrote his First Violin Concerto as a young man in his midtwenties (1916-17), but six years and a trip almost clear around the world passed before the work was given its first performance. The premiere was scheduled for November of 1917, but in the wake of the great Revolution a few weeks before, that concert never took place. In 1918 Prokofiev set off for the New World via Siberia and Japan, crossing the Pacific to arrive in San Francisco. Among the scores he carried was his First Violin Concerto. But a performance never materialised in America either. In 1920, after crossing another ocean, Prokofiev settled in Paris. Here, on 18 October 1923, the first performance finally took place with the concertmaster of the Concerts Koussevitzky orchestra, Marcel Darrieux.

Paris in the 1920s was looking for the novel, the eccentric, the bizarre and the outrageous. Prokofiev’s concerto did not meet these requirements, and it was mocked for being a “Mendelssohnism”. On the other hand, those still looking for something in the old-fashioned, traditional mould were upset as well. The concerto’s cause was taken up the following year by the famous Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti, who performed it all over North America and Europe, including in Russia for the first time with orchestra. (The first performance there of any kind was given by Nathan Milstein, accompanied by Vladimir Horowitz at the piano; both musicians were nineteen at the time.) Koussevitzky believed strongly enough in the concerto to include it in his first season as music director of the Boston Symphony, where that orchestra’s concertmaster, Richard Burgin, gave the American premiere in 1925.

For reasons that will become obvious in performance, Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto has gained a solid foothold in the standard concerto repertory, and has become a favourite with both soloists and audiences.

Unlike many of the composer’s early works, this one avoids fierce dissonances, jagged thematic lines, turbulent rhythms, sarcastic moods and harsh sonorities. Instead, it features lyricism, expressive melody, romantic moods, and unusual but exquisitely beautiful sonoric effects.

The great Russian violinist David Oistrakh praised the concerto in these terms: “Its melodious themes, fantastic harmonies, novel technique and

especially the radiant mood of the whole music delighted me. It made me think of a landscape flooded with sunshine. That indeed is how I pictured to myself the beautiful opening of the concerto and the finale.�

Prokofiev marked the opening movement’s main theme sognando (dreamy), and it is sung (that is not too strong a word) by the solo violin against a delicate shimmering effect by the orchestral strings. The jaunty, playful second theme, also introduced by the soloist, is likewise given a verbal description, narrante (in a narrative manner). Soloist and orchestra together carry the development section forward with everincreasing energy. The quiet opening material returns, now with prominent contributions from the flute, and the movement evaporates in wisps and tendrils of sound floating up into the stratosphere.

The brief but intense central movement is a scherzo, a scherzo diabolique, perhaps, but more naughty and mischievous than truly malevolent. Brilliant feats of virtuosity, including rollercoaster runs, hammer blows, glissandos on high harmonics, and left-hand pizzicatos in the midst of bowed passages, are required from the soloist, whose musical pyrotechnics are complemented by the orchestra.

The final movement contains some of the most romantic and hauntingly beautiful music Prokofiev ever wrote. As the concerto draws to a close, the main themes of the final movement (flute, then clarinet) and the first movement (solo violin playing trills) unite in a passage of dreamlike rapture. As in the first movement, the last word goes to the flute, spiraling upward until it settles comfortably on the tonic chord of D major.

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J OHA NNES BRAHMS (183 3 - 1 8 9 7 ) Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 45’00 For Johannes Brahms, the symphony was the very apogee of orchestral music. So great was the shadow cast over the nineteenth century by the mantle of Beethoven’s symphonies that Brahms spent twenty years on his first work in this genre. No other major symphonist had waited so long before offering his first symphony. By the age of 43, when Brahms finally brought forth his C-minor Symphony, Beethoven had written all but one of his nine; Schumann had written all four of his; Mendelssohn, Schubert and Mozart were already in their graves; and Haydn was up to No. 60 or so. But on the other hand, aside from Schumann, Sibelius and Mahler, it is difficult to think of another composer whose first symphony is equal in stature to Brahms’. After the first Viennese performance of Brahms’ symphony, the critic Eduard Hanslick wrote that “seldom, if ever, has the entire musical world awaited a composer’s first symphony with such tense anticipation”.

For the world premiere on 4 November 1876, Brahms deliberately chose a modest setting – “a little town that has a good friend, a good conductor and a good orchestra”. The “little town” was Karlsruhe; the “good friend and conductor” was Otto Dessoff, conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic from 1860 to 1875. The premiere and subsequent performances led by Brahms met with moderate success, but the symphony had a long hard struggle, right into the twentieth century, to gain public acceptance.

The difficult time this work had on its road to success might be seen as a reflection of its musical outline — from opening struggle to concluding triumph. The first mighty bars of the slow introduction (the only Brahms symphony to open thus) herald a work of enormous scope, power and impact. Over a steady, thundering tread in the timpani and basses, two simultaneous lines work their way forward: one upwards (violins and cellos) and one downwards (woodwinds, horns, violas) — in a gesture that seems almost to be tearing apart the musical fabric. Despite its fifteen-minute length, the entire first movement is tightly knit; all thematic, and even transitional material, of the Allegro is found in the slow introduction, almost as if this passage had provided the movement’s molecular building blocks.

The “demonic passion, wild energy, harsh defiance and hard, cold, stony grandeur” biographer Walter Niemann found in the first movement gives way to a more relaxed, resigned, though still noble second movement.

Here we find some of Brahms’ most exquisite solo writing, which includes a serenely lyrical theme for the oboe, followed a bit later by a plaintive narrative for the same instrument, and towards the end of the movement, the same theme for oboe, horn and violin together in three different registers.

The third movement is a gracious Allegretto rather than a robust scherzo like Beethoven would have written. The mood is intimate, the emotions relaxed, the orchestral colours painted in pastels — all welcome qualities in anticipation of the tremendous emotional struggle about to be unleashed in the finale.

In the fourth movement, as in the first, we again find an elaborate slow introduction presaging all thematic material to follow. If the first movement was grand, the last is grander still — the crown of the whole symphony. The wildly shifting moods (shades of the introduction to the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth) are dispelled by a glowing horn solo in C major, followed by a chorale theme in the trombones (hitherto unused in the symphony!). The noble, march-like theme of the Allegro has often been compared to that of the “Ode to Joy” tune. The epic drama that follows culminates in a return of the trombone chorale now blared forth by the full orchestra. The symphony concludes in grandiose majesty. Glorious C major has triumphed over tragic C minor.

Programme notes by Robert Markow

B OA R D OF DIR EC TOR S & C OMMI T T E E S PATRON President Tony Tan Keng Yam

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Mr Goh Yew Lin (Chairman) Ms Yong Ying-I (Deputy Chairman) Mr Ang Chek Meng Mrs Odile Benjamin Mr Chng Hak-Peng Mr Lionel Choi Prof Arnoud De Meyer Mr Heinrich Grafe Mr Kwee Liong Seen Ms Liew Wei Li Ms Lim Mei Prof Lim Seh Chun Mr Andreas Sohmen-Pao Ms Tan Choo Leng Mr Paul Tan Dr Kelly Tang Mr Yee Chen Fah NOMINATING AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Mr Goh Yew Lin (Chairman) Mr Paul Tan Ms Yong Ying-I AUDIT COMMITTEE Mr Yee Chen Fah (Chairman) Mr Kwee Liong Seen Ms Lim Mei

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