Yale Philharmonia: An Evening of Strauss and Brahms

THE PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA OF YALE n o v e m ber 1 8, 2 0 1 0 · t hursd ay 8 pm · woo ls e y h all

richard strauss (1864–1949) Adrian Slywotzky assistant conductor

Don Juan, Op. 20

Shinik Hahm conductor

Concerto in D major for oboe and small orchestra, AV 144, TrV 292 I. Allegro moderato II. Andante III. Vivace Carl Oswald, oboe

Intermission

johannes brahms (1833–1897) Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 I. Allegro non troppo II. Andante moderato III. Allegro giocoso IV. Allegro energico e passionato

As a courtesy to others, please silence all cell phones and devices. Photography of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please do not leave the hall during musical selections. Thank you.

Robert Blocker, Dean

pro g ram no tes

Richard Strauss » 1864-1949 Don Juan, Op. 20 Concerto in D major for oboe and small orchestra, AV 144, TrV 292 In the autumn of 1885, the young Richard Strauss was assistant conductor of the Meiningen orchestra under the conductor Hans von Bülow. In this capacity, he was privileged to assist in the preparation of the premiere of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony.

Despite his early adoration of the music of Brahms, Strauss soon was drawn to the music of Liszt and Wagner. Liszt was the originator of the “tone poem”, a symphonic genre that took its inspiration from extramusical or programmatic ideas. Strauss was highly taken with the idea that “New ideas must seek new forms,” and soon turned his efforts to writing tone poems.

While Don Juan was not his first tone poem (Macbeth predates Don Juan by eight months), it was the first mature work of Strauss to unite the narrative and structural elements of the work convincingly. Don Juan is cast in a hybrid form with both rondo and sonata leanings.

The freedom inherent in this form, combined with the charm and vigor of the instrumental writing, perfectly depicts the insouciant irreverence of the famous lothario. Upon its premiere in 1889, the provocative subject matter of Don Juan, coupled with the piece's dazzling orchestration, brash dissonances, and novel structure, earned Strauss an international reputation as a symphonic composer.

Strauss’s early successes launched a career that would stretch across seven decades. He was the foremost German operatic composer since Wagner and one of the most important conductors in Europe. Such was Strauss’s renown that in 1945, after Allied forces had moved into Garmisch, a resort town in Bavaria, musically sympathetic military officers declared his villa “off-limits.” One of the American soldiers who visited Strauss was the oboist John de Lancie, who would later serve as principal oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra for over thirty years.

When he asked Strauss if he had ever considered writing an oboe concerto, Strauss replied simply, “No.” However, the seed was planted, and Strauss did indeed compose the concerto, which was premiered on February 26, 1946, in Zürich. Marcel Saillet was the soloist, accompanied by the Tonhalle Orchester.

The work is in three movements played without pause, and is quite classical in form and affect. The score contains none of the heightened dissonance and bombast of Strauss’s earlier works. Strauss employs a small orchestra, with only nine wind instruments, strings, and no percussion. Throughout the 25-minute work, the soloist must negotiate a mixture of effervescent and fleet-fingered passagework, as well as long cantabile lines.

In the finale in particular, the playful character of the oboe proves infectious, as the other wind instruments in the orchestra join the soloist in an energetic game of contrapuntal whimsy.

Johannes Brahms » 1833-1897 Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 An anonymous critic writing in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1855 wrote, “The creation of a symphony nowadays is a rock on which, with only a few exceptions, most composers suffer a complete shipwreck.” After Beethoven, the symphony was seen to require not only a certain grandiosity and nobility, but also a strong emphasis on thematic development and motivic unity. With the impossibly high standard of Beethoven as the measuring stick, most composers felt unequal to the task.

For many years, Brahms was no different. He began work on a symphony many times, only to incorporate his ideas into other works such as the First Piano Concerto, Op. 15. At long last, in 1876, Brahms’s First Symphony appeared. With this work, he proved himself able to rise to the multifaceted challenges of the symphonic genre. In no composer since Beethoven had the ability to meld small-scale motivic development with large-scale formal unity and grandness of utterance shown itself so fully. Having ascended the summit once, Brahms’s remaining symphonies were completed relatively quickly: the Second a year later in 1877, the Third in 1883, and the Fourth in 1885.

Even within a body of work celebrated for its musical erudition, Brahms’s Fourth Symphony stands out for its emphasis on unity, symmetry, and contrapuntal ingenuity. Brahms himself was concerned about the accessibility of the work, writing to his friend Hans von Bülow, “I’m really afraid that it tastes like the climate here. The cherries don’t ripen in these parts; you wouldn’t eat them!” Others within Brahms’s inner circle were equally aware of the deeply intellectual nature of the symphony.

art ist p ro f i le s

At a reading of the two-piano arrangement of the work before the premiere, the eminent critic Eduard Hanslick exclaimed after the first movement, “For the whole movement I had the feeling that I was being given a beating by two incredibly intelligent people.”

The opening of the symphony is both understated in manner and bold in its simplicity.

The first theme is constructed entirely of a chain of descending thirds (B–G–E–C–A– F#–D#–B), followed by a symmetrical chain of ascending thirds (E–G–B–D–F–A–C).

Only octave displacements obscure the elemental identity of this statement. Other movements evince a similar symmetry; for example, the opening theme of the second movement rises a third, and then falls a third.

The boisterous scherzo has long been the most popular movement with audiences.

Surrounded by the context of the otherwise solemn work, it is a welcome display of good cheer and sparkling wit (note the prominent triangle part).

The final movement is one of the most remarkable creations in the whole of symphonic composition. Brahms brings the full force of his contrapuntal imagination to bear in a series of thirty variations on a theme. The form is that of a Baroque chaconne, in which the theme first appears in the bass before moving throughout the texture, but remaining everpresent. A writer for the Musikalisches Wochenblatt of Leipzig opined, “the effect of the whole is nonetheless of a continuous improvisation, the equal of which has never been heard in the area of the symphony.”

Hanslick agreed: “It is like a dark well; the longer we look into it, the more brightly the stars shine back.”

– Jordan Kuspa

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Shinik Hahm conductor Shinik Hahm, resident conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale, has been professor of conducting at the Yale School of Music since 2004. He served as artistic director and principal conductor of the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra in Korea until 2006 and was music director of the Abilene Philharmonic Orchestra (1993–2003) and the Green Bay Symphony Orchestra (1995– 2000). Previous to his appointment at the School of Music, Professor Hahm served as music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra from 1995 to 2004.

As a guest conductor, he has led the orchestras of Atlanta, Los Angeles, Warsaw, Prague, Bilbao, New York, Bangkok, Fort Worth, Louisville, Toronto, Omaha, Hartford, Alabama, Boulder, and Colorado Springs and other orchestras in the United States, Europe, and Asia. The Korean National Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra has engaged him every year since 1992, and he directed its 1995 North American tour. An active opera conductor, he has led numerous productions with the Silesian National Opera in Poland.

He has collaborated with prominent musicians including Salvatore Accardo, Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, and Sarah Chang, and has recorded with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra for Vision and Britstar. Hahm studied conducting at Rice University and the Eastman School of Music. His honors include the Fourth Gregor Fitelberg International Competition, the Walter Hagen Conducting Prize (Eastman School of Music), and the Shepherd Society Award (Rice University). In 1995 he was decorated by the Korean government with the Arts and Culture Medal.

Adrian Slywotzky assistant conductor

Carl Oswald oboe

Conductor Adrian Slywotzky has been active as a musician in the New Haven area since 1998.

For the last three years he has been the director of the New Haven Chamber Orchestra, and he is the founding conductor of the Yale Medical Symphony Orchestra. Following his passion for teaching, Adrian has worked as an educator throughout New England. Since 2005 he has been on the conducting staff of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras, and he is serving as interim conductor of the Greater New Haven Youth Orchestra for the 2008-2010 seasons. For five years he was the director of instrumental music at Hopkins School in New Haven, and he has taught at Neighborhood Music School, Elm City ChamberFest, and the Southern Maine String Camp. As a violinist, Adrian has participated in festivals including Tanglewood Music Center, California Summer Music, and the Norfolk Contemporary Music Festival. Adrian holds a ba in architecture from Yale College, where he studied violin with Kyung Hak Yu, and an mm in violin performance from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Wendy Sharp. He is currently pursuing a Master of Music degree in orchestral conducting at the Yale School of Music, where he studies with Shinik Hahm.

Carl Oswald is a classically trained oboist whose performances have spanned the globe.

A recent graduate of the Yale School of Music, he is a Baltimore native who began his oboe studies at Peabody Preparatory School before moving on to the University of Maryland.

Upon graduating from Yale, Carl was accepted into The Academy, a teaching and performing fellowship with Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute. As a result, he has performed in many venues across New York City including Carnegie Hall and the Juilliard School.

Currently residing in Brooklyn, New York, Carl is an active promoter of chamber and new music, and a new member of the Sospiro Winds, a woodwind quintet dedicated to bringing chamber music to the community.

Carl has appeared as a soloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra.

Having participated in several summer festivals, programs, and tours, he has performed internationally in cities including Sapporo, Osaka, and Tokyo, Japan; Acarigua, Venezuela; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Tallinn, Estonia.

Carl’s primary teachers have included Stephen Taylor, Mark Hill, and Ray Still.

Carl Oswald appears tonight as a winner of the 2010 Woolsey Hall Concerto Competition.

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a b o ut yal e p h ilharmonia

The Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale is one of America’s foremost music school ensembles. The largest performing group at the Yale School of Music, the Philharmonia offers superb training in orchestral playing and repertoire.

shinik hahm Conductor

Performances include an annual series of concerts in Woolsey Hall, as well as Yale Opera productions in the Shubert Performing Arts Center. The Yale Philharmonia has also performed on numerous occasions in Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York City and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The orchestra undertook its first tour of Asia in 2008, with acclaimed performances in the Seoul Arts Center, the Forbidden City Concert Hall and National Center for the Performing Arts (Beijing), and the Shanghai Grand Theatre.

renata steve Librarian

krista johnson Managing Director

roberta senatore Production Assistant yang jiao Assistant Conductor adrian slywotzky Assistant Conductor

The Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale violin 1 Geoffrey Herd, concertmaster Won Young Jung Holly Piccoli Hyerin Kim Seok Jung Lee Edward Tan Ju Hyung Shin David Radzynski Hyun Sun Sul Tammy Wang Hyewon Kim Ka Chun Gary Ngan Youngsun Kim Sae Rom Yoo violin 2 Laura Keller, principal Sun Min Hwang Sun Kyung Ban Xi Chen Soo Ryun Baek Jiin Yang Piotr Filochowski Sung Mao Liang Nayeon Kim Igor Pikayzen Tao Zhang Jiwon Kwark Joo Hye Lim viola Eleanor James, principal Edwin Kaplan On You Kim Amina Tebini Eve Tang Hyun Jung Lee Timothy Lacrosse Colin Meinecke Janice Lamarre Kristin Chai Eren Tuncer cello Jurrian Van Der Zanden, principal Yoon Hee Ko Ying Zhang Jeonghwan Kim

Jinhee Park Shinae Kim Soo Jin Chung Mo Mo Shannon Hayden Sung Chan Chang Philo Lee Jung min Han bass Nicholas Jones, principal Paul Nemeth Gregory Robbins Michael Levin Eric Fischer NaHee Song flute & piccolo Dariya Nikolenko, 1 piccolo, 3* Ginevra Petrucci, 1, 2*, 3 piccolo Peng Zhou, 1*, 2, 3 oboe Alexandra Detyniecki, 2 English horn, 3 Emily Holum, 1* Joseph Peters, 1 English horn Kaitlin Taylor, 1, 3* clarinet Ashley Smith, 1*, 2*, 3 Sara Wollmacher, 1, 2, 3* bassoon Helena Kranjc, 1*, 2*, 3 contrabassoon Meryl Summers, 1 contrabassoon, 3 Scott Switzer, 1, 2, 3* horn Christopher Jackson, 3* Jessica Lascoe, 1, 2 Andrew Mee, 3 Jamin Morden, 3 Ian Petruzzi, 1* Elizabeth Upton, 1, 2* Mimi Zhang, 1, 3 trumpet Paul Florek, 3*

Paul Futer, 1, 3 Ryan Olsen, 1* David Wharton, 1 trombone Brittany Lasch, 1 Brian Reese, 3* Ruben Rodriguez, 1* Matthew Russo, 3 bass trombone Benjamin Firer, 1 Craig Watson, 3 tuba Landres Bryant, 1 timpani Adam Rosenblatt, 1 John Corkill, 3 percussion Yun-Chu Chiu, 1 Michael Compitello, 1 John Corkill, 1 Adam Rosenblatt, 3 harp Colleen Potter, 1 1 – Performer in Don Juan 2 – Performer in Oboe Concerto 3 – Performer in Brahms * – Denotes Principal Player assistant Joseph Peters music librarians Holly Piccoli Liesl Schoenberger Elizabeth Upton Sara Wollmacher stage crew Landres Bryant / Paul Futer / Brian Reese Ruben Rodriguez / Andreas Stoltzfus Craig Watson / David Wharton

up co m ing ev ents

http://music.yale.edu DEC 01

Horowitz Piano Series: Hung-Kuan Chen 8 pm | Wed | Morse Recital Hall Tickets $12-22, Students $6 Music of Chopin, Ravel, Scriabin, and Liszt.

DEC 07

Chamber Music Society: OPUS ONE 8 pm | Tue | Morse Recital Hall Tickets $25-30, Students $15 Quartets for piano and strings by Liebermann (East Coast premiere), Schumann, and Mozart.

DEC 09

Yale Philharmonia: New Music for Orchestra 8 pm | Thu | Morse Recital Hall | Free Shinik Hahm, conductor. Music by Martin Bresnick and Yale graduate composers.

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