Yale Philharmonia: Russian Legends

THE PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA OF YALE m ay 1 , 2 0 15 路 friday 7:30 pm 路 woolsey hall

Louis Lohraseb, conductor

pyotr ilyich tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy (1880)

Shinik Hahm, conductor

richard str auss Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 Intermission

igor str avinsky The Firebird (1910) Introduction First Tableau Second Tableau

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

Robert Blocker, Dean

pro g ra m no tes

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky » 1840–1893 Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy (1880)

the grief-stricken mind and soul of a man whose love was sadly doomed from the start.

The story of star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet proves a foreboding parallel to the life of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The title characters are prevented from loving openly due to the warring of their families, while the composer’s ability to love was likewise stifled by external forces: the social stigma and illegality of homosexuality in Russia during his lifetime.

The composition of this Overture-Fantasy coincided with a tortuous period in Tchaikovsky’s life, wherein he felt compelled to pursue marriage to a woman to meet societal expectations, while carefully guarding his true feelings.

As if this were not enough, Tchaikovsky desperately sought the approval of others, and the lukewarm reception of his music by Mily Balakirev, the dedicatee of this Romeo and Juliet, deeply troubled him. Though his music was beloved by the public, the composer’s early works met a great deal of harsh criticism in the press. The Overture-Fantasy that we have today is the result of countless revisions and reworkings: repeated attempts at finding acceptance.

Richard Strauss » 1864–1949 Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30

A poignant chorale in the winds opens the work and parallels Shakespeare’s opening monologue in its stage-setting: “The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love.” In the remainder of the work, the composer juxtaposes two contrasting themes: the turbulent music of the warring Capulets and Montagues, against the sensous love theme of Romeo and Juliet. The latter theme transforms in its subsequent reappearances. At first, it surges with eroticism and rapture, but when it returns later in the work, beginning in the violas following the exhaustive interjection of more “battle music,” the ominous minor mode shadows it, signifying the lovers’ fate. The theme gasps its last breaths before an elegiac hymn in the winds mourns our heroes. The violins take up traces of the love melody one final time, fading away as the spirits of Romeo and Juliet ascend to heaven.

Tchaikovsky himself attempted suicide just following his marriage in 1877, later recalling in a letter that “the man who in May took it into his head to marry… that man wasn’t I, but another Pyotr Ilyich.” It is widely speculated that his death at the age of 53 was from poisoning himself, as Romeo does at the conclusion of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Like a haunting premonition from decades before, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet might provide a window into

“I did not intend to write philosophical music or to portray in music Nietzsche’s great work. I meant to convey by means of music an idea of the development of the human race from its origin, through the various phases of its development, religious and scientific, up to Nietzsche’s idea of the Superman.”

Richard Strauss penned these words shortly after the 1896 premiere of Also sprach Zarathustra, perhaps his boldest intellectual exercise. Strauss conveys the “origins” of the human race from the very opening fanfare. Even the key of C major, which comes to represent the natural state of man, is devoid of any printed sharps or flats on the page, and functions as the most “natural” of keys.

Out of a low rumble in the bass that seems almost to emanate from the earth itself, Strauss constructs a fanfare motive (C-G-C), derived from the unadulterated harmonic series. From these pure and natural origins, as the work progresses through each of Strauss’s designated “episodes,” the music becomes increasingly complex as the state of man is elevated through discovery and enlightenment.

Along the way, Strauss quotes the Catholic Magnificat in the ecclesiastic organ to represent the influence of religion on man’s life. He later crafts a fugue, the most “academic” of musical forms, to convey the complexities of science and technology. In a central episode, the fanfare theme, symbolic of man, cycles through numerous transpositions in search of C major, representing man’s losing his way, until triumphantly finding its place once again, a moment impossible to miss. From here, the solo violin takes center stage as Strauss transitions into a distorted waltz, with even the fanfare motive joining in this celebration. The dance is ultimately a satire on man’s excesses, for when the bell tolls and night falls on the festivity, the mood immediately transforms to lucid reality in the “song of the night-wanderer.”

The composer depicts man in his present state: adrift. The solo violin poignantly evokes this state of wandering, rhapsodically meandering to B major. Though only a half-step removed from the primeval C natural, the key is completely foreign to it: five sharps grace the key signature, even adding visual complexity to

the printed page. In Strauss’s and Nietzsche’s allegory, man has become distant from his nature. The composer brilliantly encapsulates this in the concluding measures, as the string basses softly pluck a C natural against the ringing B. So near, and yet so far.

Igor Stravinsky » 1882–1971 The Firebird (1910) With L’oiseau de feu, presented by the Ballet Russes in Paris in 1910, Stravinsky attained a level of celebrity perhaps unmatched by any other twentieth-century composer. Russophilia had taken over Parisian audiences, and it was suggested that Russian-born Stravinsky write a new ballet based upon the Slavic folk idiom. The result is a synthesis of two tales: that of the Firebird, a mythic creature akin to a phoenix, with the power to reanimate life; and that of Koschei, the immortal villain whose soul is contained not within his body, but buried inside of a magical egg.

The menacing opening music, seeping from the ominous string basses and contrabassoons, sets the scene in Koschei’s mysterious and menacing kingdom. We meet the noble Prince Ivan, introduced first in the solo horn, in a theme evocative of Russian folk song. Ivan encounters the entrancing Firebird, depicted by ebullient, playful, and often cheeky woodwinds. As he attempts to catch the fleeting bird, the music turns into a frenzied chase. He at last ensnares her, and she begs for freedom.

The composer underpins this moment with a yearning and pained theme, introduced first in the viola, oboe, and English horn. Thirteen princesses, held captive in Koschei’s kingdom, enter the scene. One of them stands out for her unique beauty, sensuously evoked in a flute cadenza. She begins to dance with the others in a playful and rhythmically propulsive game. Announced once again by the solo horn, Ivan enters the scene, the Firebird at his heels, and witnesses the princesses in a stately “round dance,” introduced by an exquisite solo oboe. The grace of this dance captures Ivan’s imagination, and he falls asleep dreaming of the beautiful princess.

In dawn’s light — signaled by the rising fanfares of offstage trumpets — our hero decides to ask Koschei for the hand of the most beautiful princess. He enters the castle and hears Koschei’s magical carillon, conveyed in the ringing celeste and harps. Soon, the menacing creatures of the realm come alive, having

noticed Ivan’s presence. Their theme appears first in the muted horns, and before long they have overtaken the entire orchestra. The syncopated theme defies the gravity of pulse, and seems to slither rather than step. They fall under the spell of the Firebird, who bewitches them to dance. After a chaotic pursuit, Ivan is captured and taken before Koschei, and the two begin to argue, their quarrel turning into a frenzied cascade of sixteenth notes throughout the whole orchestra. A solo violin reintroduces the princesses, who intervene on Ivan’s behalf. This does not sway the villain, who once again frees his retinue, as they take to the stage in an “Infernal Dance.” They continue to dance to this ferocious music until at last the entire compendium of evil creatures is exhausted, abetted by the magic of the clever Firebird, who ensorcels them by singing a lullaby. This poignant melody in the bassoon seems perfectly at home in the Russian folk idiom.

Koschei suddenly awakens in a startle, but is immediately entranced again by the Firebird.

Advised by the bird, Ivan smashes the egg containing Koschei’s soul, and in a climactic moment, a solo bass drum smashes at fortissimo before fizzling to a wispy pianissimo, like the last puffs of smoke seeping out of an incinerated skeleton. Koschei’s soul evaporates, and Stravinsky leaves us, as his score describes, in “Profound Darkness.” The ethereal tremoli in the strings wander aimlessly, rising and then slowly sinking. It is as though we are trapped in darkness ourselves, as we completely lose sight of any tonal center, and Stravinsky suspends us in a bewildering void. From this darkness, at last, the kingdom once again begins to awaken, signaled by the solo horn — the yawning reanimation of noble Ivan himself. As more characters come alive, they begin to take up this noble theme, and the music builds to a climax of rejoicing.

— Patrick Campbell Jankowski

arti st p rofiles

conductor Shinik Hahm

assistant conductor Louis Lohraseb

Shinik Hahm has established himself as a dynamic and exciting conductor. His guestconducting appearances include engagements in Europe, North and South America, and Asia.

He has led orchestras in prestigious concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C, Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, Verizon Hall in Philadelphia, Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, the Rudolfinum in Prague, Boston Symphony Hall, the Seoul Arts Center, the Tokyo Opera City Hall, and the National Theater of China.

As a conducting fellow at the Yale School of Music, Louis Lohraseb (b. 1991) currently studies with Maestro Shinik Hahm and serves as assistant conductor of the Yale Philharmonia.

He is also artistic director of the Amadeus Orchestra and music director of the Cheshire Symphony Orchestra. He is a student of the late Maestro Lorin Maazel, as well as Maestro James Conlon, whom he assisted at the 2014 Ravinia Festival for the productions of Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro.

Mr. Lohraseb took up music at age three after discovering his love of opera. He has since studied piano with Elizabeth Parisot, Findlay Cockrell, and Amy Stanley; composition with Robert Levin; musicology with Anne-Marie Reynolds; musicology and composition with William Carragan; conducting and composition with James Walker; and conducting with Gerard Floriano.

As music director and chief conductor of the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) Symphony Orchestra, Maestro Hahm led the orchestra on tour with concerts at the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall. Hahm served as music director of the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra from 2001 to 2006, during which time the orchestra earned national and international acclaim Louis Lohraseb performed and assisted in through concert tours in the U.S. and Japan. both operatic and symphonic literature at the Castleton Festival in Virginia. He was the asCommitted to the pedagogy of conducting, sistant director of the Geneseo Symphony Maestro Hahm has been a member of the con- Orchestra and the music director of the Friends ducting faculty at the Yale University School of of Music Orchestra. Conducting from the keyMusic since 1995. His students from Yale’s con- board, Mr. Lohraseb has performed Mozart ducting program have won top prizes at the piano concertos and Bach harpsichord concerBesançon, Pedrotti, Toscanini, and China tos. Mr. Lohraseb has participated in many National conducting competitions, and are chamber music recitals. His compositions active at the helm of various orchestras in the have been performed internationally, and his United States, Europe, and Asia. musicological work on the sources of Anton Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony was presented at Maestro Hahm studied conducting at Rice a conference at Oxford University in 2013 and University, where he received the Shepherd was published in The Bruckner Journal. This Society Award, and the Eastman School of April, Mr. Lohraseb presented the world preMusic, where he earned the Walter Hagen miere of the 1878 version of Bruckner’s Fourth Conducting Prize. In 1991, Hahm won the Symphony. He graduated summa cum laude prestigious Gregor Fitelberg Competition for from SUNY Geneseo in 2013, where he was an Conductors, and in 1995, he was decorated by Edgar Fellows Honors student, and was made the Korean government with the Arts and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Culture Medal.

a b o ut yale 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.

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. In 2008, the orchestra undertook its first tour of Asia 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.

shinik hahm Conductor philharmonia staff andrew w. parker Manager roberta senatore Assistant Manager louis lohraseb Assistant Conductor heejung park Assistant Conductor

The Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale violin i Mélaniè Clapies Celia Zhang Barbora Kolarova Xi Liao Avi Nagin Zou Yu Benjamin Hoffman Julia Ghica Jing Yang Elly Toyoda Jessica Oddie Ethan Hoppe Yurie Mitsuhashi Yena Lee Ruda Lee Do Hyung Kim violin ii Bora Kim Ryan Truby Sarah Arnold Michael Duffett Inyoung Hwang Jinyou Lee Marie Oka Marina Aikawa Jiazhi Wang Adelya Nartadjieva Jacob Joyce Sungmi Park Dae Hee Ahn Yite Xu Shuaili Du Ye Hyung Chung viola Hyeree Yu Xinyi Xu Yuan Qi David Mason Yejin Han Danielle Wiebe Batmyagmar Erdenebat Daniel Stone Ryan Davis

Julia Clancy Hee-Sun Yang cello Zhilin Wang Allan Hon Kimberly Miyoung Jeong Bora Kim Pall Kalmansson Chang Pan Alan Ohkubo Nayeon Kim Ji Eun Lee Yifan Wu Yoonha Yi bass Andrea Beyer Levi Jones Samuel Bobinski Luke Stence Christopher Lettie Samuel Suggs Ha Young Jung Will Robbins flute Jacob Mende-Fridkis Andrew Robson 2 Jonathan Slade Victor Wang 3 Joanna Wu 1 oboe Ron Cohen Mann 2 Ross Garton Timothy Gocklin 3 Kemp Jernigan Sol Jee Park 1 clarinet Kenta Akaogi 2 Joshua Anderson 3 Chi Hang Fung William Kennedy Kevin Schaffter 1

bassoon Barbara Bentley Bogdan Dumitriu Carl Gardner 2 Marissa Olegario 1, 3 Cornelia Sommer Yen-Chen Wu

Terrence Sweeney Georgi Videnov

horn Sarah Boxmeyer Chuta Chulavalaivong 3 Reese Farnell Sarah Ford 1 Cody Halquist 2 Patrick Campbell Jankowski Thomas Park

piano / celeste Ronaldo Rolim Sun-A Park

trumpet Patrick Durbin 2 Aaron Krumsieg Mikio Sasaki 1 Carl Stanley 3 Daniel Venora Timothy Will trombone Curtis Biggs 2 Daniel Fears Omar Dejesus Richard Liverano 3 Elisabeth Shafer 1 Jonathan Weisgerber tuba John Caughman 1, 2 John Leibensperger 3 timpani Yifei Fu 2 Kramer Milan 1 Terrence Sweeney 3 percussion Yifei Fu Matthew Keown Kramer Milan Jeffrey Stern

harp Haley Rhodeside 2, 3 Dana Schneider Noël Wan 1

organ Robert Bennesh 1 Principal on Tchaikovsky 2 Principal on Strauss 3 Principal on Stravinsky student assistants Timothy Gocklin Heejung Park music librarians Nicholas DiBerardino Allan Hon Matthew Keown • Fiona Last Michael Laurello Richard Liverano David Mason • Marie Oka Yefim Romanov stage crew Samuel Bobinski John Caughman Patrick Durbin Batmyagmar Erdenebat Yifei Fu • Julia Ghica Matthew Keown John Kossler • Fiona Last Christopher Lettie Richard Liverano Thomas Park Elisabeth Shafer Terrence Sweeney Georgi Videnov Johnathan Weisgerber

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