Robert Blocker, Dean
Yale Philharmonia David Yi conducting fellow with Sirena Huang violin & Szymon Nehring piano
Peter Oundjian, Principal Conductor Friday, February 23, 2018 • 7:30 pm Morse Recital Hall
Yale school of music
Yale Philharmonia David Yi conducting fellow
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770–1827
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19 I. Allegro con brio II. Adagio III. Rondo. Molto allegro Szymon Nehring, piano
Henryk Wieniawski 1853–1880
Légende, Op. 17
Maurice Ravel 1875–1937
Tzigane, M. 76 Sirena Huang, violin intermission
Robert Schumann 1810–1856
Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61 I. Sostenuto assai — Allegro, ma non troppo II. Scherzo. Allegro vivace III. Adagio espressivo IV. Allegro molto vivace
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Artist Profiles biography The Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale 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 at the Shubert Theatre. The Yale Philharmonia has also performed on numerous occasions in Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York City and at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 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. biography David Yi, conducting fellow David Yi has conducted such orchestras as the Seoul Philharmonic, Jenaer Philharmonie (Germany), Philharmonie Baden-Baden (Germany), Filharmonie Hradec Králové (Czech Republic), Severočeská filharmonie Teplice (Czech Republic), and Karlovarský symfonický orchestr (Czech Republic). Recently, he was invited to participate in the Tokyo International Music Comp-etition for Conducting and the Bamberg Symphony Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition. He has participated in master classes with such conductors as Riccardo Muti and Myung-Whun Chung.
Mr. Yi holds a master of music degree in orchestral conducting from the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar, Germany, where he studied with Nicolas Pasquet and Markus Frank. He also received a master of music degree from the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Hugh Wolff. David is currently studying orchestral conducting with Peter Oundjian. biography Szymon Nehring ’19ad, piano In 2014 Szymon Nehring won First Prize at the Arthur Rubinstein in Memoriam International Competition in Bydgoszcz. In 2015 he received a Krystian Zimerman scholarship and performed in the finals of the 17th Frédéric Chopin International Piano Competition where he won the Honourable Mention and Audience Prizes, among others. In 2017 he won First Prize at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv as well as several extra prizes including the prize for Best Performance of a Chopin Piece. His debut CD of music by Polish composers received the 2016 Fryderyk Award from the Polish Phonographic Academy in the category of Album of the Year – Solo Recital, as well as the Joker from Crescendo magazine, and the Supersonic Award from Pizzicato magazine. Szymon released two other albums in 2016: Chopin’s Piano Concertos with the Sinfonietta Cracovia orchestra conducted by Jurek Dybał and Krzysztof Penderecki, as well as Penderecki’s Piano Concerto “Resurrection” under the composer’s baton. The artist’s latest record-
Artist Profiles • notes on the program ing includes Chopin’s works performed on a period instrument (Erard 1858). Szymon Nehring has given concerts in Russia, China, Ukraine, Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Austria, Germany, France, Norway, Italy, Israel, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Canada, and the United States. biography Sirena Huang ’19ad, violin Sirena Huang has been featured as a soloist with more than fifty prestigious ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and the Staatskapelle Weimar in Germany. She has appeared as a guest artist at the Verbier, Marlboro, and Ravinia Music Festivals. Sirena has been the recipient of numerous prizes and awards. In 2017, she was awarded First Prize at the Inaugural Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition and was a New York Concert Artist winner. Additionally, she was a First Prize Gold Medalist of the 6th International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians (2009), and was awarded both First Prize and the Audience Award at the Cooper International Competition (2011) as well as the Hannloser Prize for Violin at the Verbier Music Festival in Switzerland (2013). Motivated by a deep wish to inspire peace and harmony with her music, Sirena has performed before world leaders, thinkers, and humanitarians, including President Obama and Elie Wiesel.
ludwig van beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19 Although it was the second concerto to be published, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in B-flat major, Op. 19, was actually written before the Concerto No. 1 in C major. The young Beethoven was quick to move to new projects, seemingly eager both to express his creativity, and to make a name for himself in Europe, thereby achieving financial stability. His prolific nature at this youthful period differs from the obsessive perfectionism of his later life, when he would revisit and refine his compositions multiple times. Beethoven seems, at this point in his life, content to “let things go,” so to speak. When the composer submitted this concerto to his publisher, he admitted, “I do not claim it to be one of my best.” Beethoven’s selfdeprecation is interesting at this point in his life, when the young composer was transitioning from a student in Bonn to a star soloist and composer in Vienna. The first movement of this concerto originated in sketches from Beethoven’s days in Bonn. Viewing the entire work as a manifestation of his growing maturity at this crucial point in his artistic life shows a composer both indebted to his training in the Classical style and eager to insert his own unique voice. The concerto’s first movement, in a typical sonata-allegro form with an added orchestral exposition common to concertante works of this period, begins with an attention-grabbing fanfare motive, followed closely by a more lyrical gesture. This duality of themes, that of the extroverted and introverted, or masculine and feminine,
notes on the program is at play through much of the rest of the movement, and provides the composer with two distinct “characters” who engage in a sort of musical dialogue throughout. Though largely composed in the Classical tradition, Beethoven does occasionally venture to some harmonically forwardlooking areas, including a striking excursion to the key of G-flat major. The second movement is a poignant adagio in the warm key of E-flat major. This tonality was particularly well-suited to tuning of wind and brass instruments of the period, and one can certainly hear their rich presence gently cushioning the soloist’s lyrical melodic lines. The movement is evocative of a highly ornamented operatic solo over an accompaniment that, for the most part, stays out of the way of the coloratura soloist. The pianist is invited, at the end of the movement, to play “con gran espressione,” or “with great expression.” The humorous and jesting finale is a rondo with recurring refrains that separate brief jaunts into a variety of unique episodes. As in the finale of the first concerto, Beethoven provides some rhythmic trickery, deliberately placing accents in his primary theme on the “wrong” beat, throwing off the audience’s perception of the meter. A spicy minor central episode, in the “Turkish” style very much in vogue with Beethoven’s Viennese audience, adds a playful divergence. In one last comical gesture, the composer transforms his playful dance theme into a lyrical and expressive theme in a much slower tempo, before simply casting off this sentimentality with a final shrug. —Patrick Campbell Jankowski
Henryk Wieniawski Légende, Op. 17 Henryk Wieniawski grew up in Lublin, Poland, in a house filled with music. His father was a successful doctor while his mother, Regina Wolff, was a skilled pianist, trained in Paris. Henryk’s brother Jozef took after their mother, picking up the piano, and the two brothers played as a duo throughout Europe. From the age of 15, Wieniawski maintained a busy touring concert schedule, earning praise and adulation wherever he went. Pianist Anton Rubinstein introduced Wieniawski to Isabella Hampton in London, and the two soon fell deeply in love. He soon wrote to a friend of his intention to “marry a young English woman whom I love more deeply than the finest Stradivarius or Guarneri.” Despite Wieniawski’s renown, Mr. Hampton did not approve of the marriage, wishing for his daughter a gentleman with “a more solid financial background.” Overwrought by the fear of losing his beloved Isabella, Wieniawski worked tirelessly to compose Légende, a concert piece for violin and orchestra. He organized a private house party for Isabella’s parents and performed the violin part himself. The Hamptons, thoroughly moved by Wieniawski’s warm and earnest playing and the work’s lush, impassioned spirit, gave the couple their blessing. A chromatic wave in the bassoons introduces a sinuous thread ever-present through the work. The solo violin soars above a dark cushion of lower strings and winds nobly, yet defeated. The middle section, cheerier and brighter, carries with it a shadow of the opening’s melancholy.
Notes on the Program Maurice Ravel Tzigane, M. 76 Late one night in 1922, at a musicale in a London salon, Maurice Ravel listened attentively to Hungarian violinist Jelly D’Aranyi perform with Béla Bartók. At Ravel’s request, D’Aranyi encored the performance with gypsy melodies, long after all the other guests peeled off. D’Aranyi’s musicality and flawless technique gained her international attention, even in the shadow of her great-uncle Joseph Joachim. Ravel wrote to Bartók that the gypsy melodies, “inspired me to write a short piece of diabolical difficulty, conjuring up the Hungary of my dreams. Since it will be for violin, why don’t we call it “Tzigane”?” Tzigane, the French word for gypsy, was originally written for violin and piano, but Ravel later transcribed it for violin and lutheal, an instrument that combined plucked and struck strings, evoking the sounds of the Hungarian cimbalom. Ravel orchestrated the work in July 1924 and this final version received its premiere in November of that year with D’Aranyi, the dedicatee, on the violin. Even though she received the score only a few days before the performance, the piece was wildly successful with the audience. The violin enters alone with a cadenza, playing on the g-string for the first twenty-seven measures. The orchestra entrance seems to float down from the heavens, with harp and muted strings materializing out of thin air. The soloist is propelled through a series of complex left and right hand pizzicato passages, chromatic scales, double stops and tempo
changes. The soloist then catapults through a series of spectacularly virtuosic passages, crescendoing and accelerating into a cataclysmic denouement. —Julia Clancy robert schumann Symphony No. 2 in C major, Op. 61 Much of the development of the symphony in the nineteenth century can be understood as composers’ reactions to Beethoven’s formidable contributions to the genre. Robert Schumann’s four symphonies are no exceptions. His Second Symphony traverses a course from inner turbulence to spiritual triumph analogous to that of Beethoven’s Fifth. Traces of the Eroica are to be found in the disproportionately long development and coda sections in the opening movement. The placement of the Scherzo instead of the Adagio as the second movement follows the model of Beethoven’s Ninth, and its scope, with two trio sections, reflects Beethoven’s expansion of the form in his Fourth Symphony. Other composers’ influences also shaped Schumann’s Second Symphony. Schumann had suffered his first major mental breakdown in 1844, and when he returned to composing early in the following year it was to embark, along with his wife, Clara, on a study of counterpoint. He composed a set of fugues for organ on the name Bach during the months when his health was strongest during that year. The compositional forethought required for that project contrasted sharply with Schumann’s characteristically impulsive methods of writing, and the complexity of thematic interrelationships and
Notes on the Program motivic recall in the Second Symphony testify to Schumann’s adoption of this more arduous compositional process. It is likely that a December 9, 1845 performance of Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony inspired Schumann to write his own symphony in the same key. The work was drafted in late December of that year, and it was completed in October of 1846. The first performance took place at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig on November 5, 1846, with Mendelssohn conducting. The premiere was far from successful, prompting Schumann to revise the outer two movements. The first movement begins with a slow introduction that simultaneously presents the kernels of two ideas prominent throughout the symphony: a fanfare marked by dotted rhythms in the brass and constant legato quarter notes in the strings. The introduction builds in tempo until it spills into the Allegro, in 3/4 time. Quick dotted rhythms and accents on the second beat of each measure define the first theme. Its melodic skips give way to a second, more linear theme, which provides the main material for the development and coda sections. A vibrant scherzo follows. Its violin writing demands great virtuosity, and two contrasting trio sections offer repose. The second of these presents the name B-A-C-H (using the German spelling for the pitches B-flat, A, C, and B-natural), in homage to the earlier composer, whose contrapuntal techniques also permeate the third and fourth movements. The fanfare motive from the first movement punctuates the close of the Scherzo.
The Adagio, in the parallel minor key, contains a beautiful cantabile melody with a gently pulsing accompaniment. After presenting the melody, Schumann treats it contrapuntally, but this learned style melts into a return of the original romantic musical language with which the movement opens. The Finale begins bombastically, with an ascending scale and a series of chords. The first theme, an outgrowth of the opening measures, is followed by material taken from the slow movement, inverted and transformed by the exuberant mood of the Finale. Both of these themes ultimately yield to a set of chorales, elevating the art of the symphony to religious heights. The fanfare motive from the first movement returns, inverted as the cadential figure of a descending fifth, marking the final coda. A decisive plagal, or “Amen,” cadence precedes the timpani’s insistence on the symphony’s conventional authentic cadence. —Elizabeth Sellers
Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale Peter Oundjian, Principal Conductor Violin I Laura Park Marianne Di Tomaso Ye Jin Yoon Rachel Ostler Maura Scanlin Gaga Won Matthew Woodard Bora Kim Yuqi Li
Double Bass Kelvin Ng Kohei Yamaguchi Russell Thompson
Violin II Clement Luu Alyssa Blackstone Ethan Hoppe Ji Soo Lee Michael Tropepe Dongsoo Cha Andy Peng Yejin Min
Oboe Michelle Nguyen 1 Elliot Lichtenberg Leonardo Ziporyn 2 3 Lauren White Shawn Hutchison 4 Lauren Williams
Viola Josip Kvetek Rimbo Wong Julia Clancy Rayna Chou Hayaka Komatsu Marta Lambert Cello Eric Adamshick Valentina Crnjak James Rosamilia Ji Young Choi Samuel DeCaprio
Flute Maria Luisk 1 Amir Farsi 2 Jungah Yoon 3 Lucas Oliveira 4
Trombone William Wortley 4 Hillary Simms bass trombone Zachary Haas 4 timpani Dmitrii Nilov Harp Anna Ellsworth celeste Samuel DeCaprio 1 2
Clarinet Ziqi Yue 2 Michael Moy 3 Giovanni Bertoni 4 Bassoon Dana Brink 1 2 3 Ethan Lippert 4 Horn Esteban Garcia 1 Josh Thompson 2 Antonia Chandler 3 Gabriel Mairson 4 Trumpet Chloe Swindler 3 Eric Rizzo 4 Oscar Mason
3 4
Principal on Beethoven Principal on Wieniawski Principal on Ravel Principal on Schumann
Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale Staff
Manager Jeffrey M. Mistri Assistant Manager Samuel Bobinski Conducting Fellow David Yi Library Antonia Chandler Bora Kim Marta Lambert Gregory Lewis Laura Park Lauren Williams Leonardo Ziporyn Office Assistant Kristy Tucker Stage Crew Jisu Jung Matt Keown YoungKyong Lee Aaron Israel Levin Gabriel Mairson Dmitrii Nilov Lucas Oliveira Tanner Porter Hillary Simms Sam Seyong Um Daniel Vaitkus Rimbo Wong
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Robert Blocker, Dean
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Upcoming Events Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio february 27 Oneppo Chamber Music Series Pianist Gloria Chien, violinist Soovin Kim, and cellist Paul Watkins, each of whom enjoys a distinguished career in other contexts, come together in a new trio to perform Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E-flat major, Op. 70, No. 2; Pierre Jalbert’s Piano Trio No. 2 (2014); and Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, Op. 87. Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 7:30 pm Tickets start at $26 • Students free Composition Faculty march 1 Faculty Artist Series An evening of music by faculty composers Martin Bresnick, Aaron Jay Kernis, David Lang, Hannah Lash, and Christopher Theofanidis. Morse Recital Hall | Thursday | 7:30 pm free admission Harp vs. Harp: Edmar Castaneda & Grégoire Maret march 2 Ellington Jazz Series A concert showcasing the musical range and imagination of harpist Edmar Castaneda and harmonicist Grégoire Maret. Morse Recital Hall | Friday | 7:30 pm Tickets start at $20 • Students free
Robert van Sice & Friends march 3 Faculty Artist Series Celebrating 20 years at the School of Music, Yale Percussion Group Director Robert van Sice is joined by students and alumni for the premiere of a new piece by YSM alumnus Garth Neustadter, a performance of Steve Reich’s pioneering Sextet, and more. Morse Recital Hall | Saturday | 7:30 pm free admission Vista: Chamber Music march 6 YSM Ensembles Student chamber ensembles perform and provide insight into the repertoire. Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 7:30 pm free admission Robert Blocker, piano march 7 Horowitz Piano Series Faculty pianist and School of Music Dean Robert Blocker is joined by piano faculty colleagues and members of the Yale Philharmonia for an all-Mozart program. Morse Recital Hall | Wednesday | 7:30 pm Tickets start at $13 • Students free
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