Korngold’s Violin Concerto

MASTERWORKS

Korngold’s

VIOLIN CONCERTO

& An Evening of Cross-Cultural Connections THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2025 / 7:30 PM / MAURICE ABRAVANEL HALL | LEAGUE CONFERENCE CONCERT FRIDAY JUNE 13, 2025 / 7:30 PM / MAURICE ABRAVANEL HALL THIERRY FISCHER, conductor (Utah Symphony’s Music Director Emeritus) CLARA-JUMI KANG, violin UTAH SYMPHONY

REVUELTAS VARÈSE

Noche de encantamiento (Night of Enchantment) (10’) (4th movement from La noche de los Mayas) Amériques (22’)

INTERMISSION

KORNGOLD

GABRIELA ORTIZ

CONCERT SPONSOR

Violin Concerto (24’) I.

Moderato nobile

II.

Romanze

III.

Allegro assai vivace

Téenek – Invenciones de Territorio (16’)

ORCHESTRA SPONSOR

QUINN EMANUEL

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ARTISTS’ PROFILES — VIOLIN CONCERTO

Thierry Fischer

Conductor Utah Symphony Music Director Emeritus

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hierry Fischer has been Music Director of the São Paulo Symphony since January 2020 and of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León since September 2022. He is also Music Director Emeritus of the Utah Symphony (where he was Music Director 2009-2023).

Fischer has conducted orchestras across the globe, notably the Cleveland Orchestra, the Boston, Atlanta and Cincinnati Symphonies, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Maggio Musicale Firenze among others. He has performed and commissioned many world premieres, and works with the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Intercontemporain but also other leading chamber orchestras such as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Swedish Chamber.

CONDUCTOR SPONSOR

PATRICIA RICHARDS & WILLIAM NICHOLS

April 2024 saw the launch of Frank Martin: Odyssey, of which Fischer is Artistic Director. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of his compatriot’s death Fischer has curated a series of concerts running through to the end of 2026 in which every note of Martin’s oeuvre will be performed in Geneva. As part of the festival he conducts the world premiere of a newly commissioned orchestration of the ballet Die Blaue Blume with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne in their main season and at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.

Clara-Jumi Kang Violin

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orn to Korean parents and raised in Germany, Clara-Jumi Kang is internationally renowned for her musicality and virtuosity. Throughout her career she has received many awards and accolades including 1st prize at the Indianapolis International Violin Competition, Sendai Violin Competition and the Seoul Violin Competition.

Recent and upcoming highlights include festival appearances at the BBC Proms, the Hollywood Bowl alongside the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and her debut at the Salzburg Festival. Later in the 24/25 season, she made her debut with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia alongside Music Director Daniel Harding, and returned to the Munich Philharmonic with Chief Conductor Designate Lahav Shani to critical acclaim, jumping in for Lisa Batiashvili and Hilary Hahn respectively. She will also perform with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra on tour to China and Europe with Zubin Mehta.

She returns to the Israel Philharmonic and Seoul Philharmonic before debuts with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Ottawa, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra among others. She also performs a recital tour across Korea, and makes her recital debuts at the Boulez Saal in Berlin and the Hong Kong City Hall, as well as solo recitals in Rome and Torino.

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HISTORY OF THE MUSIC — VIOLIN CONCERTO

By Jeff Counts

La noche de los mayas: IV. Noche de encantamiento Duration: 10 minutes.

THE COMPOSER – SILVESTRE REVUELTAS (1899-1940) – In Mexico during the first decades of the 20th century, the name Revueltas established itself as a formidable cultural brand. We know Silvestre was the composer of the family, but he had one sister and a brother who were painters, another sister who was an actress and dancer and a younger brother who made his fame as a writer. Silvestre spent time in the U.S. as a student and performing violinist but returned home in 1929 to assist Carlos Chávez at the Orquesta Sinfónica de México. Before traveling to Spain in 1937 to involve himself in their civil war, Revueltas made the decision to shift his attention from concert music to film scoring. He died, destitute, sick and far too young, in 1940.

THE HISTORY – Revueltas provided music for nine movies from 1935 to 1940. They were Mexican projects, with Mexican production teams (mostly), Mexican writers, Mexican actors and Mexican themes. A brief cameo of Revueltas himself

can be seen in one of them. It is at close to the one-hour mark in Vámanos con Pancho Villa (1936) where we witness the composer as he turns from his saloon piano to glare at a drunkard who has just shot out the light above him. It’s a great moment, and an interesting artifact of the golden age international filmmaking. Three years later in 1939, Revueltas was hired to score La noche de los mayas (The Night of the Mayas). The film was a tragic period piece, set at a moment of collision between the Mayan culture and the modern world. In addition to the usual disruptions any outsider would bring to such a pristine circumstance, there is a love triangle between members of the tribe and the white explorer that, of course, ends very badly. The film, though initially wellregarded by some, has receded almost completely into history. In fact, if not for music, we might not remember it at all. In 1960, José Yves Limantour created a four-movement suite from the Mayas score. Paul Hindemith arranged a two-movement version as well, but the Limantour iteration has become the standard. In a fabulous scholarly study of this music, Abderrahman Anzaldua notes that the structure of the movements mirrors the filmed narrative appropriately, but that much of the music of the suite never made it into the final cut. A prime example of this is Movement IV – Noche de encantamiento (Night of Enchantment) – which is mostly constructed from themes not heard in the film. Also, Limantour named his movements based on his interpretation

HISTORY OF THE MUSIC — VIOLIN CONCERTO

of the plot, not any indication left behind by Revueltas. Here, then, the Night of Enchantment depicts the sacrificial rites of the Mayans and the heavy percussion of their sound world.

THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1939, Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz had their premieres, Finnegans Wake was published, Siam changed its name to Thailand and, of course, war broke out in Europe.

THE CONNECTION – Music from La noche de los mayas has not been performed by Utah Symphony since 2013.

Vladimir Kulenovic conducted.

Amériques Duration: 22 minutes.

THE COMPOSER – EDGARD VARÈSE (1883-1965) – Though he showed an early interest in (and a significant aptitude for) music, Edgard Varèse’s father insisted that he pursue engineering when he came of age. It was a constant source of conflict between them, this mandated focus on a “practical” field of expertise, and Varèse eventually left home over it. The intellectual impact of his scientific studies, however, was not as easy to walk away from. Varèse’s understanding of music and its most concrete attributes lead him to coin the phrase “organized sound” to describe his personal aesthetic. He was among the earliest adopters of electronics in music but, though he is still counted among the most influential 20th century artists, his surviving catalogue of works in any genre is vanishingly small.

THE HISTORY – Varèse served in the French Army during World War I but was dismissed after contracting pneumonia.

The senseless war and the poor health that kept him from fighting in it convinced Varèse to relocate to America in 1915. In the bustling artistic hothouse of New York City, the composer found many like-minded European expats to associate with. It was through his casual interactions with the Dada movement that Varèse met Louise McCutcheon, who became his second wife in 1921. That same year, Varèse completed the initial version of his monumental orchestral work Amériques. It was the result of an anonymous commission from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and his first major composition after moving to the States. The inaugural performance did not occur until 1926 in Philadelphia, and Varèse revised it the following year, setting up a new French “premiere” in 1929. The European location of the second debut notwithstanding, it was the

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chaotic soundscape of New York City that clearly inspirated the music of Amériques. This is evident in the sirens of course, which are too literal to miss, but the overlapping shouts and crashes of the densely urban American city were a fascination that Varèse could not escape. One imagines him at the window of his Greenwich Village apartment just after the move, frozen in joyous shock at the Promethean racket of his new home. For a man as obsessed with the organization of sound as Varèse, early 20th century New York must have felt like blacksmith’s shop, its molten sonic metals awaiting his steady hand.

Performances of Amériques have always been rare, given the size and complexity of the orchestral forces, but the raw physicality of the music requires a live hearing. For those not lucky enough to be here tonight, though, the 1966 recording by Utah Symphony and Maurice Abravanel (the very first for the piece!) will just have to do.

THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1927, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis had its premiere, the Harlem Globetrotters had their road debut, Babe Ruth had his 60-homerun season, the Freedom Bridge opened in Canada and Heisenberg formulated his Uncertainty Principle.

THE CONNECTION – The Utah Symphony last performed Amériques in 2017. Thierry Fischer was on the podium.

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, Op. 35 Duration: 24 minutes in three movements.

THE COMPOSER – ERICH KORNGOLD (1897-1957) – As discussed earlier this season regarding his music for The Sea Hawk, we know that Korngold left the simmering mess of Europe for Hollywood in 1934 and immediately immersed himself in symphonic film scoring. In addition to The Sea Hawk, his best titles from that pre-war period also included The Adventures of Robin Hood and Kings Row. Korngold, a former child prodigy of Mozart-like promise, believed he was doing more with his movie work than merely supporting a mostly visual (and to some, lowbrow) entertainment medium. He genuinely felt he was creating music for “operas without singing” and aspired to create music that would stand on its own in a concert setting.

THE HISTORY – Even though he tried to fill his many wonderful film scores with “real” art, Korngold’s focus changed after the war back to music of a more traditionally

HISTORY OF THE MUSIC — VIOLIN CONCERTO

“serious” nature. His youthful work had already earned him at least one “genius” comment (from Mahler, no less, and Strauss agreed) and his Hollywood years gained him many new admirers in America. But his productivity as a composer of non-commercial orchestral music had been dormant long enough that he needed to rekindle his reputation with success in a standard genre. The first effort in that regard was a good one. The violin concerto was written in 1945 and exists now as the perfect synthesis of Korngold’s two lives as a musician. The music is unapologetic in both its embrace of late-stage Romanticism and its acknowledgement of Hollywood’s new-age charms. Korngold had clearly learned much during the ‘30s about how to establish and maintain contact with an audience. His concerto displays all the rigorous craftsmanship and masterful instrumental facility of his Viennese training but also the flair for emotional directness he perfected while at Warner Brothers. All three of the concerto’s movements, in fact, include themes from his films. It was common in Korngold’s day (and remains so in ours) to assume that film composers and “legitimate” composers were made of mutually exclusive parts. The error of this thinking is embodied by consummate artists like Erich Korngold, Miklos Rozsa, Bernard Hermann and many of the movie scribes alive and active today. For Korngold, the proof of his worth beyond the screen lies is the fact that the premiere performance of his excellent violin concerto was handled by none other than Jascha Heifetz. Heifetz was an unquestionably “serious” musician who Korngold, no doubt grateful to have such a legend as his muse, referred to as “Caruso and Paganini in one person.”

THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1945, World War II ended, Ebony Magazine had its beginnings, Korea split into two nations, Colombia joined the United Nations and E.B. White published the children’s book Stuart Little.

THE CONNECTION – The Utah Symphony last performed the Korngold Violin Concerto in 2018 under Thierry Fischer.

Madeline Adkins was soloist.

Téenek – Invenciones de Territorio Duration: 16 minutes.

THE COMPOSER – GABRIELA ORTIZ (b. 1964) – She is the daughter of two founding members of Los Folkloristas, the celebrated Latin American folk music ensemble, so Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz didn’t really have a choice. She was always going to be a musician. Ortiz cut her teeth on stage with her parents as a charango player

and guitarist, while also devoting herself to the study of “classical” piano. Her European education focused on conventional composition but her professional voice now regularly combines the disparate influences of her life.

2025 has been a landmark year for Ortiz, with a GRAMMYwinning record with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel to her credit.

THE HISTORY – That album was not the first time Ortiz and Dudamel worked together. In 2017, the LA Phil premiered her concert work Téenek – Invenciones de Territorio.

The program note provided by the publisher (penned by Alejandro Escuer) states: “Téenek is the language spoken in the Huasteca region, which encompasses the states of Veracruz, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo, Puebla, and Querétaro in Mexico. Its name means ‘local man,’ in reference to all the men and women who belong to a place whose mere existence determines their destinations in time and space: their territories. Indeed, in any region of the world, human beings from any given era determine a way of BEING that transcends time and defines their relationship with their surroundings, no matter what their race, skin color, political borders, or socio-economic condition may be.”

Escuer continues: “Téenek is a sonorous metaphor of our transcendence, a strength that alludes to a future where there are no borders, but rather, a recognition of the actual particularities and differences between us that propitiate our development while at the same time enriching and uplifting us. Music thus bears witness to a gradual history of matches and mismatches, of ancient cultures and new symbols, of ways to resist and comprehend the world by imagining sounds and senses, of that vital rhythm that lends meaning to the sense of belonging, and of roots that identify us culturally. Through the plain and simple idea of fitting in, of not dividing but, rather, recognizing otherness, Téenek reflects on the importance of reaffirming identities through fragmentation. It is precisely because of this that Téenek is composed of a series of apparently dissimilar inventions which find their strength in their differences, enrichment, and musical development: these are interwoven and transformed over time in a discourse that demonstrates how the existence of borders may be diluted in pursuit of the powerful idea that our potential future lies in recognizing our differences.”

THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 2017, the Women’s March on Washington occurred in America, as did a total solar eclipse from coast to coast, Robert Mugabe was ousted in Zimbabwe, and Harry and Meghan got engaged.

THE CONNECTION – These concerts represent the Utah Symphony premiere of Téenek by Gabriela Ortiz.

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