VCH Presents Gil Shaham & Adele Anthony

GIL SHAHAM & ADELE ANTHONY 8 July 2017 Victoria Concert Hall

Gil Shaham, violin Adele Anthony, violin

GIL SHAHAM & ADELE ANTHONY Jean-Marie Leclair

Sonata in E minor, Op. 3 No. 5 12’00

1. Allegro ma poco 2. Gavotte: Andante grazioso 3. Presto

Béla Bartók

Louis Spohr

Selections from 44 Duos for Two Violins, Sz.98 7’00 14. Pillow Dance 21. New Year’s Greeting 22. Mosquito Dance 36. Bagpipes 43. Pizzicato 40. Rumanian Dance

Duo Concertante in D major, Op. 67 No. 2 20’00 1. Allegro 2. Larghetto 3. Vivace

INTERMISSION 20’00

Henryk Wieniawski

Sergei Prokofiev

Jules Massenet

Selections from Études-Caprices, Op. 18 13’00 1.

2.

3.

4.

Moderato. Allegro moderato Andante. Agitato e vigoroso Allegro moderato Tempo di Saltarella, ma non troppo vivo

Sonata for Two Violins, Op. 56 15’00 1.

2.

3.

4.

Andante cantabile Allegro Commodo (quasi Allegretto) Allegro con brio

Méditation from Thaïs 5’30

arr. Julian Milone

Ben Bernie/Maceo Pinkard

Sweet Georgia Brown 2’30

arr. Julian Milone

Go green. Digital programme booklets are available on www.sso.org.sg.

Scan the QR code in the foyer to view a copy.

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 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.

A DE L E A N T HON Y violin

Since her triumph at Denmark’s 1996 Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition, Adele Anthony has enjoyed an acclaimed and expanding international career. Performing as a soloist with orchestra and in recital, as well as being active in chamber music, Anthony’s career spans the continents of North America, Europe, Australia and Asia.

Anthony holds numerous awards and prizes. She has received awards from the Australia Council, the South Australian Government and The Queen’s Trust. In 1990, the National Arts Club in New York invited her to perform at the presentation of the Medal of Honor to Zubin Mehta. At age 13, she was the youngest winner of the ABC Instrumental and Vocal Competition.

Anthony studied at the Conservatory of the University of Adelaide with Beryl Kimber until 1987 and continued her studies at New York’s Juilliard School, where she worked with the eminent teachers Dorothy DeLay, Felix Galimir and Hyo Kang. She made her Australian debut with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in 1983 and since then has appeared with all six symphony orchestras of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland, West Australian, Tasmanian, and Adelaide).

Adele Anthony performs on an Antonio Stradivarius violin, crafted in 1728.

J EAN-MARIE L ECL AIR (16 9 7 – 176 4 ) Sonata in E minor, Op. 3 No. 5 12’00 1. Allegro ma poco 2. Gavotte: Andante grazioso 3. Presto One does not usually associate musicians with unsolved murder mysteries, but Leclair is that rare exception. His gardener found him dead on the morning of 23 October 1764 lying in a pool of blood with three stab wounds in his back. It was an ignominious end for the acclaimed violinist, composer, and dancing master who established the French school of violin playing and whose music had entertained Louis XV and his court.

His six sonatas for two violins were published in 1730; all are in three movements in the style of Vivaldi’s concertos. The Sonata in E minor, like the others, has fast opening and closing movements, each with two repeated sections, and a contrasting slow, middle one. In this instance, it is a gavotte, which is a French folk dance popular at the court of Louis XIV and later used in Baroque instrumental suites.

BÉL A B ARTÓK (1881–19 4 5 ) Selections from 44 Duos for Two Violins, Sz.98 7’00 14. Pillow Dance 21. New Year’s Greeting 22. Mosquito Dance 36. Bagpipes 43. Pizzicato 40. Rumanian Dance Folk music was both a passion and a constant source of inspiration for Bartók. As a young man, he began collecting folk tunes in his native Hungary and neighbouring countries, just as their local traditions were being erased by mass migrations and modernisation. His distinctive style is the fusion of classical, twentieth-century and folk music, infused with jarring dissonances and driving rhythms. Bartók left Hungary in 1940 and immigrated to America.

There, he suffered from financial hardship and declining health, but composed what many consider to be his masterpiece, the Concerto for Orchestra.

The violin duos date from 1931. The short pieces, some under a minute in length, are original compositions based on folk tunes from Eastern Europe and Arab countries. Intended as technical studies for violin students, they have crossed over to the concert hall due in no small part to their crystalline, haunting beauty.

LO UI S S POHR (1784–1859) Duo Concertante in D major, Op. 67 No. 2 20’00 1. Allegro 2. Larghetto 3. Vivace Spohr made his mark first as a violin virtuoso and then as a conductor. His innovations include introducing the violin chin rest, being among the first to conduct with a baton, and inserting orchestral rehearsal marks in scores.

Most of his early works were for the violin; he wrote 18 concertos for the instrument, more than any other composer. Today, however, only his clarinet concertos have a permanent place in the repertoire, although his Violin Concerto No. 8 has had its champions, including the great Jascha Heifetz.

Spohr adhered to the conventions of the Viennese Classicists and especially admired Mozart’s music. The Duo Concertante in D major, which dates from 1824, is in three movements in traditional sonata form. Even though it is in a major key, its mood is in keeping with Spohr’s penchant for the melancholy. A characterisation he disputed, considering himself as ‘cheerful’ a composer as any.

HE NRY K W I ENIA WSKI (1835–188 0 ) Selections from Études-Caprices, Op. 18 13’00 1. Moderato. Allegro moderato 2. Andante. Agitato e vigoroso 3. Allegro moderato 4. Tempo di Saltarella, ma non troppo vivo

Due to his mother’s tenacity and his phenomenal talent, Wieniawski graduated from the Paris Conservatory at the age of 10. (The rules said that you had to be 12 to enter.) Comparisons to Paganini were inevitable as he blazed his way as a violin virtuoso across the concert stages of Europe. American critics wrote that he livened up the dreary programmes of Anton Rubinstein, one of the greatest pianists of all time. He was an indefatigable traveller.

In 1860, Wieniawski moved to St. Petersburg, partly to placate his inlaws who wanted him to settled down, but also because it was one of the musical capitals of Europe. The Études-Caprices were composed there in 1862. The short works provide the first violin with virtuosic displays above the accompaniments of the other player. The fourth étude, inspired by a lively Italian dance, has spectacular pyrotechnics for the first violin.

S ER GEI P R OKOF IEV (1891 – 19 5 3 ) Sonata for Two Violins, Op. 56 15’00 1. Andante cantabile 2. Allegro 3. Commodo (quasi Allegretto) 4. Allegro con brio Prokofiev’s son described the Sonata for Two Violins as being “lyrical, playful, fantastic and violent in turn”. It was composed in 1932 as Prokofiev was moving away from the harsh, dissonance of his youth to the more lyrical, neoRomantic style of his later years. Prokofiev penned the piece after hearing a particularly poor attempt at a two-violin sonata by another composer. He later wrote that, “Listening to bad music sometimes inspires good ideas”.

The first movement begins with a lyrical melody for a solo violin, but with the entry of the second instrument gathers speed and intensity before tapering off in the high extreme of the violin’s range. A frenzied, almost violent rhythmic urgency characterises the quick second movement, quite the opposite of the lyrical, introspective third movement played by muted violins.

The finale begins with a jaunty tune and ends with a flourish.

JU LES MAS S ENET (1842 –1912) arr. Julian Milone Méditation from Thaïs 5’30 The Méditation, an orchestral interlude from Massenet’s opera Thaïs, is famous for its sensuous, beautiful music scored for solo violin, harp and orchestra. As the music plays, the courtesan Thaïs decides to renounce her frivolous existence and follow the monk Athanaël into the desert to pursue a new life. By the end of the opera, his love for her has led him to abandon the monastic life, but she dies and is assumed into heaven, while he remains earthbound racked by guilt and grief.

Massenet was one of the most celebrated opera composers of his time. This version of the Méditation is by Julian Milone, a British violinist, teacher and composer, known for his arrangements of classical favorites and popular songs. He also has the distinction of having arranged the music for the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005.

BE N BERN I E (1891–1943) MA C EO PI N KARD (1897–1962) arr. Julian Milone Sweet Georgia Brown 2’30 Sweet Georgia Brown was composed in 1925 by Ben Bernie, a popular American bandleader of the late ‘20s and ‘30s and the songwriter, Maceo Pinkard, with lyrics by Kenneth Casey, who had been a child star in early silent movies. The song was supposedly inspired by the tale of a politician who named his daughter after the State of Georgia, in whose legislature he had long served. It was a number one hit for Bernie and his orchestra and has been recorded hundreds of times since then. Sweet Georgia Brown is perhaps best known today as the theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters, an exhibition basketball team that has toured more than 122 countries.

Programme notes by Rick Perdian

In Collaboration with Esplanade

“Take 5 breathe brilliantly as one… stunning technical supremacy and musical cohesion.”

– The Straits Times

QUINTET-SSENTIAL

BRITISH

TAKE 5 PIANO QUINTET

LIM YAN, PIANO · FOO SAY MING, VIOLIN CHAN YOONG HAN, VIOL A · LIM SHUE CHURN, VIOLIN CHAN WEI SHING, CELLO

Featuring Piano Quintets by Arnold Bax and Frank Bridge

1 0 S E P 2 0 1 7, S UN, 7. 3 0 P M E S P L A N A D E R EC I TA L S T U D I O T I C K E T S F RO M $1 8 G ET YO U R T I C K E T S AT W W W.E S P L A N A D E .COM

www.esplanade.com

EsplanadeSG

Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay is operated by The Esplanade Co Ltd (TECL), which is a not-for-profit organisation, a registered Charity and an Institution of a Public Character.

EsplanadeSingapore #esplanade UEN: 199205206G Information correct at time of print.

FOR THE EMPEROR 11 & 12 August 2017 7.30pm I Victoria Concert Hall Two nights of string quartets fit for a king, by Haydn and Mozart, pinnacles of the Neo-Classical era. The central hymn from Haydn’s Emperor Quartet was the national anthem of Austria for a time, while Mozart’s Prussian Quartets, written with the Prussian King’s interest in the cello in mind, were published two weeks after his premature death.

“If Mozart had written nothing but his violin quartets and the Requiem, they alone would have been sufficient to make him immortal.” – HAYDN Musicians of the SSO Tickets: $20 Concessions: $15 www.sistic.com.sg

OPEN REHEARSAL 12 August 2017 I Sat I 10am - 12pm Open to Friends of the SSO and ticketholders

PATRON SPONSOR

SSO.ORG.SG/CHAMBER

PATRON SPONSOR

SSO.ORG.SG/VCHPRESENTS