Vivaldi's The Four Seasons Playbill

MASTERWORKS

Vivaldi’s

THE FOUR SEASONS DECEMBER 13, 2024 / 7:30 PM / MAURICE ABRAVANEL HALL DECEMBER 14, 2024 / 7:30 PM / MAURICE ABRAVANEL HALL JESSICA RIVERO ALTARRIBA, conductor MADELINE ADKINS, violin

ANGEL LAM

Please let there be a paradise…(9’)

GLAZUNOV The Seasons (38’) I.

Winter (Frost, Ice, Hail & Snow)

II.

Spring (gentle Zephyr, Birds & Flowers)

III. Summer (Cornflowers & Poppies dance with the Spirit of the Corn) IV. Autumn (Bacchanale & Apotheosis - as stars circle the Earth) INTERMISSION

VIVALDI The Four Seasons (42’) I.

La primavera (Spring)

Allegro, Largo, Allegro II.

L’estate (Summer) Allegro non molto, Adagio, Presto

III.

L’autunno (Autumn) Allegro, Adagio molto, Allegro

IV.

L’inverno (Winter) Allegro non molto, Largo, Allegro

MADELINE ADKINS, violin

CONCERT SPONSOR

Please let there be paradise… was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras with the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

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ARTISTS’ PROFILES — THE FOUR SEASONS

Jessica Rivero Altarriba Conductor

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uban conductor JESSICA ALTARRIBA is known for her charismatic stage presence, dynamic energy, and communicative skills. Recently announced as Utah Symphony Assistant Conductor 2024–2025 Season and Taki Alsop Fellowship Award Recipient 2024–2026.

Altarriba was named the New Jersey Symphony’s first-ever Colton Conducting Fellow for the 2023–24 season, she is also a Freeman Conducting Fellow with Chicago Sinfonietta. Altarriba is concurrently pursuing her Masters in Conducting at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

Upcoming engagements this season include performances with Utah Symphony, the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, New Jersey Symphony, Peabody Symphony Orchestra, NOI Institute and National Seminario Orchestra-Ravinia. During the 2022–2023 season she worked with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Peabody Symphony Orchestra and Lüneburg Symphoniker, Germany as a guest conductor.

CONDUCTOR SPONSOR

Madeline Adkins Violin

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Madeline Adkins joined the Utah Symphony | Utah Opera as Concertmaster in 2016. She served as Associate Concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 2005–2016. She performs on the “ex-Chardon” Guadagnini of 1782, graciously loaned by Gabrielle Israelievitch to perpetuate the legacy of her late husband, former Toronto Symphony concertmaster, Jacques Israelievitch.

Adkins is a Concertmaster of the Grand Teton Music Festival and has served as Guest Concertmaster of the orchestras of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, São Paulo, Houston, and Hong Kong, among many others. A sought-after soloist, Adkins has appeared with orchestras in Europe, Asia, Africa, and 26 US states. Her recording of the complete works for violin and piano by Felix Mendelssohn was released to critical acclaim in 2016.

GUEST ARTIST SPONSOR

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As an educator, Adkins has coached the National Youth Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the National Orchestral Insitute and the Haitian Orchestra Institute. She completed her studies at the New England Conservatory and the University of North Texas. When not on stage, Adkins is passionate about animal rescue, and has fostered over 100 kittens!

HISTORY OF THE MUSIC — THE FOUR SEASONS

Please let there be a paradise…

Duration: 9 minutes.

THE COMPOSER – ANGEL LAM (b. 1978) – Born in Hong Kong and based in New York, composer Angel Lam’s principal aim is to “tell intimate stories about life and death, growing up, inspirations and relationships.” She is so committed to the narrative drive behind her music, in fact, she often writes accompanying short prose pieces that are an “inseparable component of her creative process.” Lam has studied ancient Chinese zithers (zheng and qin) to deepen her connection to her heritage and the timeless cultural memory she taps into is evident in her music. Her two worlds come together quite often through projects with Melvin Chen’s Musical Bridges, YoYo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and a concert program at NYC’s Merkin Hall called “Hong Kong Journeys”.

THE HISTORY – With the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, the League of American Orchestras commissioned Lam to write a work for a consortium of 30 orchestras to perform during the 2024 and 2025 seasons.

Kansas City Symphony did the premiere of Please let there be a paradise… in April, and additional ensembles include the Jacksonville Symphony, the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, and, of course, our own Utah Symphony. In her composer’s note for the piece, Lam details her inspiration and gives the listener an introduction to the very important person who lives on in the music. It is a beautifully sincere statement of purpose, and worth reproducing here in full: “Please let there be a paradise… is inspired by a personal story, but I want to share it with you because it is also universal. Many of us had lost a loved one during the pandemic. This piece is about myself going into the underworld in search of my father. In 2021, during the height of the pandemic, my father passed away alone in Hong Kong. His death was very unusual and unexpected, not caused by Covid-19. I was desperate for answers, but I was 8,000 miles away from him and unable to travel to investigate.

I started having dream sequences of myself going into a dark, grisly world looking for him… Growing up, he was my muse. On one desperate, distressed night, I finally saw him in my dream at a place full of broken roads and misty waters. He talked excitedly about the topics he loved while he was alive…the arts, history, and music! He was humming a beautiful melody…

And then, he disappeared again. Where is he? Where did he go? Is he happy? Why is he in this dark, broken place? Why did he leave me? How did he leave? I had so many questions… I wrote this piece to heal, to find solace and a resting place for myself, and most importantly, to find a paradise for him.”

THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 2024 (so far), war rages in Europe and the Middle East, consequential elections are approaching or occurring in nearly 80 countries, the Summer Olympics were presented in Paris, and a total solar eclipse happened in April.

THE CONNECTION – This is the Utah Symphony premiere of Angel Lam’s Please let there be a paradise… and part of a 30-orchestra national commissioning consortium.

The Seasons Duration: 38 minutes in four scenes.

THE COMPOSER – ALEXANDER GLAZUNOV (1865–1936) – It is a pity that, thanks to program notes which reference the disastrous premiere of Rachmaninoff’s 1st Symphony (present company very much included), Glazunov’s name is often invoked as the (possibly) drunk conductor who tanked that concert. His story is better than that. Long before, Glazunov had showed early promise as a teenager and established himself as heir apparent to the “Mighty Five” Russian masters Cui, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, and Mussorgsky. Rimsky-Korsakov took him on as a student but began to view him more as a colleague in short order, once he saw how quickly the younger man was developing.

Glazunov was a true Russian standard-bearer, and he paid particularly close attention to the career of Tchaikovsky.

THE HISTORY – The detailed study of Tchaikovsky’s work must have included the master’s symphonically rich ballet scores, and Glazunov seemed to have intuited a lot about how to work with choreographers and impresarios. In 1899, he received a commission from the director of the Imperial Theatres Ivan Vsevolozhsky to write a ballet called Harlequinade. Coincident to this opportunity was another company project called The Seasons, to be composed by Glazunov’s close friend Riccardo Drigo. Drigo was the Music Director of the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg, and it didn’t take long for the two men to realize they were in possession of the other’s interest. In the end, they simply switched commissions. The creator of the scenario for The Seasons was Marius Petipa. Petipa, the legendary French/ Russian ballet master, had dozens of creations to his name by this point, and he had worked with Glazunov previously.

If Petipa’s highly specific instructions (down to the measure number in some instances) for The Seasons ever came as a shock to the composer, he didn’t let on. Quite the contrary.

“Should we not learn freedom in chains?” Glazunov said while cheerfully coloring within Pepita’s lines. The Seasons

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HISTORY OF THE MUSIC — THE FOUR SEASONS

had no plot per se. It used embodied elements like frost, ice, and snow to elicit responses from gods, satyrs. and other beings as the cycle of life from birth to maturity was presented allegorically. The premiere occurred in February of 1900 before the assembled Imperial Court at the Hermitage, just three days after the first performance of Drigo’s Harlequinade. The Seasons did not reach repertory status while Glazunov was alive and wouldn’t likely enjoy its current modest renown if not for Mikhail Fokine’s use of the Bacchanale music in his 1909 musical pastiche Cléopâtra. Glazunov never composed another ballet, sadly, but he considered The Seasons one of his favorite works in any genre.

THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1900, the first Zeppelin flight occurred in Friedrichshafen, Germany; the first line of the Paris Metro opened; Puerto Rico became a U.S. territory; and Italy’s King Umberto I was assassinated.

THE CONNECTION – This marks the first time the Utah Symphony has performed the entire score of Glazunov’s ballet The Seasons. The “Winter” and “Spring” movements have been performed a number of times on youth concerts, most recently April 2016 with Rei Hotoda conducting.

The Four Seasons Duration: 42 minutes in four sections.

THE COMPOSER – ANTONIO VIVALDI (1678–1741) – Vivaldi became music director of the Venice Ospedale della Pietà (an orphanage for boys and girls, but only the girls studied music) in 1716 after more than a decade as their master of violin. Much was expected of him there, including a request in 1723 for no less than two concerti per month, to be sent by mail if necessary, for performance by the school orchestra. Records from the Ospedale confirm payment for at least 140 such works over the ensuing six years, so Vivaldi certainly kept up his end of the bargain.

The mail-in option was probably critical to his success, because the school was not his only creative outlet. He wrote many operas during this period and often accepted work for patrons in other cities like Mantua and Rome.

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THE HISTORY – It was for a Mantua client that Vivaldi wrote his most famous work, The Four Seasons. Other Baroque composers attempted to capture the sweep and spin of the calendar through music, but none came close to what Vivaldi accomplished. The Four Seasons was first published in Amsterdam (1725) as part of a larger collection with the rather grand title of The Contest of Harmony and Invention. Vivaldi dedicated the work to Count Wenzel von Morzin (yes, of the same Morzin family that would later commission Haydn). The Seasons comprise the first four of the set’s twelve concerti and are each based on evocative sonnets that represent their respective time of year. The authorship of the texts is unknown but there exists some suspicion that the Vivaldi himself wrote them. It makes sense that it was him or someone he knew well enough to dictate to, since the sonnets are purpose-built for use as programmatic concerto inspiration. And the three-part structure of the poetic words corresponds nicely with what would become the traditional fast-slow-fast configuration of the baroque concerto, too nicely to be coincidental.

Each musical Season is a virtuosic showpiece for soloist and accompaniment, replete with allusions to the birdsong and flowing streams of Spring, the heat and thunderstorms of Summer, the harvest celebrations and hunting parties of Autumn and the bitter winds and uneasy footing of Winter. Vivaldi was reportedly not just a capable instructor, but an expert performing violinist in his own right. He has often been credited with bringing his instrument out of the ensemble and to the fore as a featured solo voice. His Four Seasons may well be the culmination, historically if not intentionally, of that effort. The effect of hearing the entire “year” in one sitting is both a thrilling pictorial experience and a fascinating evolutionary snapshot of the violin itself.

THE WORLD – Elsewhere in 1725, Russian Tsar Peter the Great died; the Malt Tax riots broke out in Scotland; and important international accords were signed, including the Treaty of Vienna between Austria and Spain and the Treaty of Hanover between Great Britain, France, and Prussia.

THE CONNECTION – Utah Symphony has programmed The Four Seasons, whole and in part, many times over the years. The most recent Masterworks performance was in 2013 with Thierry Fischer.