Yale Philharmonia

THE PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA OF YALE a p r i l 4, 2 0 14 路 fri d ay 8 pm 路 woolsey hall

Peter Oundjian, guest conductor

christopher theofanidis Rainbow Body

ludwig van beethoven

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 I. Allegro con brio II. Largo III. Rondo. Allegro Robert Blocker, piano Intermission

dmitri shostakovich Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47 I. Moderato II. Allegretto III. Largo IV. Allegro non troppo

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 Christopher Theofanidis » b. 1967

Ludwig van Beethoven » 1770–1827

The title, Rainbow Body, comes from an idea in Tibetan Buddhism which says that when an enlightened being dies, his or her body doesn’t decay, but instead is absorbed directly back into the universe as energy and light. For me, this had a resonance with the material that my piece is based on — a fragment of music of the Medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen [Ave Maria, O auctrix vite]. Nine hundred years later, her music is proof for me that music doesn’t improve, it just changes form, and this particular chant with its healing quality was the energy which I tried to absorb back into my piece’s own musical universe.

“I saw almost nothing but empty leaves; at the most, on one page or another a few Egyptian hieroglyphs, wholly unintelligible to me were scribbled down to serve as clues for him; for he played nearly all of the solo part from memory since, as was so often the case, he had not had time to set it all down on paper. He gave me a secret glance whenever he was at the end of one of the invisible passages, and my scarcely concealable anxiety not to miss the decisive moment amused him greatly and he laughed heartily at the jovial supper which we ate afterwards.” This account by Ignaz Seyfried, page turner at the premiere of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, not only provides an amusing story, but also sheds light on the role of the piano concerto in the composer’s career. Seyfried’s theory that Beethoven had not had time to set down the piano part is probably not the whole truth. It was part of the pianist/composer mystique to allow for a degree of improvisation in performance. The solo part was only written down a year later, even then only out of necessity.

Also, as a composer trying to make a living as a performing virtuoso, Beethoven would have wanted to ensure that only he himself had access to the solo part. It was to enhance his status as both performer and composer that the piece was premiered in April of 1803, during a marathon that also included the composer’s First and Second Symphonies, and the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives.

Rainbow Body

Rainbow Body has a different sensibility from the Hildegard chant, with a structure that is fundamentally dramatic and developmental, but I hope that it conveys at least a little of my love for the beauty and grace of her work.

— Christopher Theofanidis Christopher Theofanidis is one of the more widely performed American composers of his generation. He regularly writes for a variety of musical genres, from orchestral and chamber music to opera and ballet. His composition Rainbow Body is one of the most performed orchestral works of the past decade, and has been programmed by over 120 orchestras internationally. Mr. Theofanidis’ works have been performed by such groups as the New York Philharmonic, London Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Moscow Soloists, and he has a long-standing relationship with the Atlanta Symphony and Maestro Robert Spano. Several of his works have been recorded by that ensemble on the telarc label. In 2007, he was composer of the year for the Pittsburgh Symphony, for which he wrote a violin concerto with the soloist Sarah Chang.

Mr. Theofanidis is currently on the faculty of Yale University and has taught at the Peabody Conservatory and the Juilliard School. He is also a fellow of the U.S.-Japan’s Leadership Program. This summer, Mr. Theofanidis will serve as artist faculty at the Aspen Music Festival and as Master Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37

The first movement evokes a militaristic setting, the occasionally aggressive outbursts perhaps anticipating the turmoil of the Fifth Symphony.

The orchestra presents all of the thematic ideas in its opening statement, and the piano restates and develops them in dialogue with the orchestra.

Apart from the exceptional length of the orchestral exposition, there is nothing formally innovative about the general discourse of the movement — at least until the end. Having developed the rhythmically “knocking” element of the main theme throughout most of the movement, that motive becomes the basis for an event that is truly unusual — the music following the piano’s cadenza. This is also the point at which the influence of Mozart’s C minor concerto comes into focus, with both composers similarly deviating from standard classical concerto practice. Both Mozart and Beethoven create an intricate interplay between pianist and orchestra that continues until the conclusion of the movement. In Beethoven’s

case, hushed arpeggios in the piano provide a magical commentary over the “knocking” motive, finally heard in its purely rhythmic form in the timpani.

After the first movement, the Largo second movement is born of an entirely different expressive universe; Czerny compared the theme to “a holy, distant, and celestial harmony.” As one of the slowest movements in Beethoven’s output, it also reflects his ability to transform a simple song-form into a glorious utterance.

As in the first movement, the jaunty Rondo finale is capped off by a surprise. After a brief cadenza, Beethoven unexpectedly dives into a C-major coda set in a giddy 6/8 meter. The theme is adjusted to give the high spirits full rein, and the movement closes by disposing of the dark C minor mood, but maintaining motivic integrity, in true Beethovenian style.

— Liam Viney

Dmitri Shostakovich » 1906–1975 Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47

In a climate of paranoia and subjugation, Shostakovich set to work on his Fifth Symphony, which he composed almost completely in secret. The previous year saw the composer’s hard fall from the good graces of the government. When it finally premiered, in 1937, the Fifth Symphony was accompanied by an article entitled “An artist’s creative response to just criticism.” The article, which may or may not have been written by the composer, was considered an authentic repent in 1937. Along with the piece, it brought the composer back into the good graces of the government, where he remained for the majority of his life.

However, since his death in 1975, evidence and the accounts of his friends and family have revealed that the composer was secretly a defector who maintained a façade of compliance in the interests of safety. This symphony, musically conservative in comparison to his previous compositions, was seen at the time of its premiere as evidence of the composer’s “overcoming the disease of leftism.” In hindsight, however, it seems more likely that the entire work is fraught with irony, sometimes comedic, at other times bleak. Shostakovich has given his detractors what they demanded, but entirely against his own will. The triumphant finale feels inauthentic, like a child apologizing to his parents for bad behavior

while feeling no remorse. However, it is a profoundly moving work regardless of how it is interpreted. The composer wrote in his memoirs, “I’ll never believe that a man who understood nothing could feel the Fifth Symphony. Of course they understood, they understood what was happening around them and they understood what the Fifth was about.”

As in other great symphonies, appropriately including Beethoven’s Fifth and Mahler’s Fifth, the tone moves from darkness to light, symbolizing a triumph over adversity. The D minor to D major trajectory is also shared by Mahler’s Fifth. The brooding, ominous opening movement gives way to a macabre scherzo, in which the music seems to waltz against its will. The third movement, an intimate and contemplative largo, has an almost religious, celestial tone, evoked in the elegiac harp and the delicate music-box sound of the celeste.

The finale, from which a triumphant chorale emerges from a stormy bellicose march, contains Shostakovich’s clearest symbolism of the triumph of man over the shackles of suppression. The composer quotes his own song setting of a Pushkin poem entitled “Rebirth.”

That poem, and this entire symphony, are reflections of man struggling to overcome the weight of repression. Perhaps it is most appropriate to reflect on the closing stanza of Pushkin’s poem in hearing this cryptic and evocative work: “Thus vanish the illusions from my tormented soul, and in it appear visions of original and innocent times.”

— Patrick Campbell Jankowski

arti st pro files

art ist pro f i le

Peter Oundjian, conductor

Robert Blocker, piano

Famed for his orchestra-building skills and audience engagement, Peter Oundjian is celebrating a successful first season as Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Alongside this position Oundjian has been Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra since 2004 and has been an integral part of the rebirth of the orchestra.

He has created the annual Mozart Festival, as well as the hugely successful New Creations Festival. His previous positions include Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Robert Blocker is highly regarded internationally for his artistry as a pianist, his leadership as an advocate for the arts, and his extraordinary contributions to music education. In 1995 he was appointed the Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music and Professor of Piano at Yale University.

A regular guest conductor, recent and future engagements include concerts with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Israel Philharmonic orchestras, as well as the Orchestre de Paris, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

Previous and upcoming U.S. highlights include concerts with the Detroit, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Houston, and Saint Louis symphony orchestras. Further afield, he has travelled to Australia to conduct the Sydney Symphony and he made his Japanese conducting debut with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 2013.

In 2008, Oundjian launched tsoLIVE with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, a selfproduced label of the orchestra’s live concert recordings. Oundjian has since released six recordings on the label, including Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, Vaughan Williams’ Symphonies No. 4 & 5 and Holst’s The Planets.

Upcoming releases include Piano Concertos

by Gershwin and Adams with Xiayin Wang and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, on Chandos.

Originally trained as a violinist, Torontoborn Peter Oundjian was educated in England, attending the Royal College of Music in London before studying at the Juilliard School in New York. He was the first violinist of the renowned Tokyo String Quartet for fourteen years. Peter Oundjian is now in his 32nd year as a visiting professor at the Yale School of Music. In 2009, he received an honorary doctorate from the San Francisco Conservatory. In January 2013 Peter was awarded the Samuel Simons Sanford Medal for distinguished service to music, the highest honour that the Yale School of Music can bestow.

A native of Charleston, South Carolina, Robert Blocker began his study in piano at age five, presenting his first recital two years later. His advanced degree studies were under the tutelage of the eminent American pianist, Richard Cass. He later studied with George Bolet on a post-doctoral fellowship.

Today, he concertizes throughout the world.

Recent orchestral engagements range from appearances with the Beijing and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras to the Prague and Moscow Chamber Orchestras. His appearances at the Beethoven Festival (Warsaw) and the Great Mountains International Music Festival (Korea) add to the critical acclaim: “great skill and accomplishment, a measurable virtuoso bent and considerable musical sensitivity…mesmerizing moments” (Los Angeles Times).

In 2006 Blocker was named Honorary Professor of Piano at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and in November of 2007 he was the keynote speaker at the 80th anniversary of the Shanghai Conservatory. He has served on the advisory boards for the Avery Fisher Artist Program and the Stoeger Prize at Lincoln Center, the Gilmore Artist Advisory Board, and the Curatorium of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. He is a member of the Van Cliburn Foundation Board of Directors and Executive Committee.

Robert Blocker appears regularly on national radio and television as an artist and commentator and is active as a consultant to major educational institutions and government agencies. In 2000, Steinway and Sons featured him in a film commemorating the tercentennial year of the piano. His recording of three Mozart concerti with the Biava Quartet, released by Naxos in 2009, was praised as “utterly charming” by Fanfare Magazine. In November 2004, Yale University Press published The Robert Shaw Reader, a collection of Shaw’s writings edited by Dean Blocker. The volume is now in its third printing.

up co ming events

http://music.yale.edu APR 8

Brentano String Quartet Tue | 8 pm | Morse Recital Hall Haydn: String Quartet No. 50; Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 3; and short pieces by Dvořák, Shostakovich, Carter, Ives, and more.

Tickets start at $25 • Students $10

APR 9

Yale Cellos Wed | 8 pm | Morse Recital Hall Aldo Parisot, director. Music by Barber, Bach, Haydn, Vivaldi, and Ezra Laderman.

Tickets start at $10 • Students $5

APR 25

Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale Fri | 8 pm | Woolsey Hall Peter Oundjian, guest conductor.

Rossini: Overture from La Scala di Seta; R. Murray Schafer: Harp Concerto, with soloist Antoine Malette Chénier; Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suites 1 and 2.

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a b o ut yal e p h ilha rm onia

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.

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.

The Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale violin 1 Suliman Tekalli Marina Aikawa Zou Yu Avi Chaim Nagin Ruda Lee Mann-Wen Lo Yite Xu Barbora Kolarova Eun-young Jung Inyoung Hwang Do Hyung Kim Xi Liao Sharon Gayoung Cho Betty Zhou violin 2 Julia Ghica Seul-A Lee Jacob Ashworth Mélanie Clapies Jinyou Lee Jessica Oddie Ye Hyung Chung Heewon Uhm Choha Kim Eun Kyung Park Matheus Garcia Souza Jing Yang viola Yejin Han Batmyagmar Erdenebat Isabella Mensz Daniel Stone Colin Brookes David Mason Hyeree Yu Xinyi Xu Danielle Wiebe Benjamin Bartelt

cello Sohyang Yoo Zhilin Wang Yoonha Yi Ji Eun Lee Bora Kim Alan Ohkubo Chang Pan Allan Hon Jia Cao Elisa Rodriguez Sadaba bass Gregory Vartian-Foss Christopher Lettie Noah Cotler Andrea Elizabeth Blackert Beyer Ha Young Jung Samuel Bobinski flute Jonathan Slade Christina Hughes Isabel Lepanto Gleicher Bohee Kim oboe Timothy Gocklin Kristin Kall Kemp Jernigan Fiona Last Sol Jee Park clarinet Joshua Anderson Kevin Schaffter Eric Anderson

shinik hahm Conductor philharmonia staff andrew w. parker Manager roberta senatore Music Librarian brent laflam Production Assistant jonathan brandani Assistant Conductor louis lohraseb Assistant Conductor

bassoon Darren Hicks Barbara Bentley Marissa Olegario Bogdan Dumitriu John Searcy horn Patrick Jankowski Chuta Chulavalaivong Zachary Quortrup William Eisenberg Thomas Park Wing Lam Au trumpet Timothy Will Patrick Durbin Carl Stanley Robert Moser Jean Laurenz trombone Kevin Dombrowski Elisabeth Shafer Curtis Biggs Daniel Fears Christopher Brown tuba Jens Peterson harp Antoine Malette-Chénier Haley Rhodeside

percussion Mari Yoshinaga Georgi Videnov Terrence Sweeney Jonathan Allan Douglas Perry Garrett Arney piano Scott MacIsaac Yue Chu stage crew Jonathan Allen Garrett Arney Patrick Durbin Jonathan Hammonds Christopher Hwang Stephen Ivany Fiona Last Louis Lohraseb Thomas Park Douglas Perry Zachary Quortrup Elisabeth Shafer Daniel Stone Terrence Sweeney Georgi Videnov Mari Yoshinaga music librarians Batmyagmar Erdenebat Darren Hicks Matheus Garcia Souza Allan Hon Choha Kim Hye Jin Koh Fiona Last Michael Laurello David Mason Nicole Percifield Rachel Perfecto